State issues ACMP determination for Kenai gas storage
Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas has issued a proposed Alaska Coastal Management Program determination for gas storage in the Marathon Oil Co.-operated Kenai gas field.
In January Marathon applied for a state gas storage lease within the Sterling formation pool 6 C1 and C2 sands of the Kenai field. The company wants to establish a gas storage facility that encompasses about 7,531 acres of the pool 6 sands. The reservoir lies in a mix of state, Cook Inlet Regional Inc. and Marathon subsurface land, as well as in multiple tracts of other privately owned subsurface. The lease would only apply to state land within the gas storage facility.
The Division of Oil and Gas has found that the proposed gas storage lease is consistent with the ACMP and expects to issue a best interest finding and final consistency determination soon. No one has raised any issues that would indicate inconsistency with the ACMP. However, the division will address in its best interest finding some comments that it received in opposition to the project, division Petroleum Land Manager Pat Galvin said in a memorandum about the proposed ACMP determination.
The division has specified a series of environmental mitigation measures for the project and has issued advisories on possible permitting requirements.
Marathon’s proposal for gas storage in the Kenai gas field is a response to dwindling gas supplies in the Cook Inlet area — gas storage enables natural gas to be stored during periods of low demand to help meet peak winter demand. Unocal (now owned by Chevron) already operates gas storage in the Swanson River and Pretty Creek fields.
—Alan Bailey
|