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Panel hears prevention, response plans Alaska Senate Resources hears from AOGA, ConocoPhillips and Shell on Arctic offshore oil spill preparedness and response plans Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Macondo Gulf of Mexico well blowout in April raised concerns worldwide and Alaskans — like residents of other coastal areas — are asking what regulations are in place and if the state is prepared for an offshore spill.
The Alaska Senate Resources Committee heard from panels representing industry, environmental, community and agency perspectives at a Sept. 21 hearing in Anchorage on oil spill preparedness and response in the state, and on what changes in state statute and regulation participants would recommend.
It is likely that those recommendations, heard by Senate Resources co-chairs Sens. Lesil McGuire, R-Anchorage and Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, are a preview of issues that will be addressed when the Legislature reconvenes in January.
McGuire said more hearings on offshore drilling issues are planned before the Legislature convenes, including the Northern Waters Task Force, which meets in Anchorage Oct. 1, and a meeting on infrastructure planned for Barrow in December.
Wielechowski noted that oil production produces some 85 percent of the state’s unrestricted revenue, but production is declining and this raises the question: “If we are to encourage more oil production in Alaska, how can we ensure that it’s done in the safest way possible,” minimizing impacts on other industries and on the state’s fish and wildlife.
McGuire said for offshore and outer continental shelf drilling, Alaska wants “to be a model for the rest of the nation, and to have thought through the various contingencies, the things that can happen” in OCS drilling.
With throughput declining, “outer continental shelf drilling is the next best promise … for the future of the trans-Alaska pipeline,” she said.
The plan for the hearing was to provide a foundation for “continued dialogue with industry and with the executive branch,” McGuire said.
(Industry presentations are covered in this story; see the Oct. 3 issue for coverage of the environmental, community and agency panels.)
Importance of prevention The Alaska Oil and Gas Association, the industry trade group in the state, recommended holding off on any changes to state laws and regulations until federal agencies complete their review of the Gulf oil spill.
Marilyn Crockett, AOGA’s executive director, told the committee that Alaska is recognized “as a world leader in oil spill prevention and response laws and regulations,” and noted that both experts and equipment from Alaska were deployed to the Gulf of Mexico to assist with cleanup efforts there.
Prevention is the key, Crockett said, telling the committee that the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which is responsible for downhole drilling, requires testing of blowout prevention equipment every 14 days for development drilling and every seven days for exploration drilling.
The state has had blowouts, she said, with seven since 1968 on the North Slope and the most recent in 1994. In Cook Inlet there have been four blowouts since 1962, with the last in 1987.
Crockett said the blowouts that have occurred in the state had no injuries and resulted in no oil spills, “so these provisions are working.”
There are 19 approved primary response action contractors, she said, with the focus in Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound and the North Slope.
Alaska Clean Seas, which provides response on the North Slope, has $50 million in inventory, provides extensive training to its personnel and others on the North Slope, holding 580 classes in 2009, and also has an active research and development program, Crockett.
“Alaska does have the necessary response capabilities in place to respond to a spill should one occur. … Any changes to state requirements really need to wait until the federal efforts are completed,” Crockett said.
Dedicated on-site response Becky Silves, drilling and training coordinator for ConocoPhillips Alaska, talked about the company’s plans for Chukchi Sea drilling at the Devil’s Paw some 80 miles offshore. The first well will be drilled no earlier than 2012, she said, but most likely 2013 or later “given the ongoing unresolved litigation and regulatory uncertainty.”
To focus on prevention during drilling, “we believe we have to understand the environment and conditions we’ll be operating in,” and the company is doing preparatory work for that drilling, she said.
ConocoPhillips has been working with scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and with Shell and Statoil for three years “to implement an integrated environmental studies program,” providing insight to species in the area and also physical oceanography that will affect the company’s exploration, she said.
ConocoPhillips has 14 years of ice-cover information for its prospect and plans to drill in ice-free conditions. Silves said Shell previously drilled a well on the Conoco prospect, “which gives us knowledge about the geological and pressure characteristics for our area.”
While the company’s focus is on prevention, it will have a federally approved “spill response contingency plan that includes onsite, dedicated spill response personnel and equipment which will allow for an immediate response to a Chukchi incident.” Oil spill response vessels and a recovered oil storage tanker will be maintained in the area of the drill site.
A nearshore barge will store additional response equipment on the water so that the company has “a ready and mobile response fleet” that could capture oil which comes toward shore, Silves said.
Multilayer prevention Pete Slaiby, vice president of Shell Alaska, said Shell puts “a huge amount of effort in prevention.” He compared the company’s efforts to a bowtie: Everything on one side is prevention; the event is the knot in the tie; the other side of the tie would be response.
“Truly successful companies are always ready for the response,” he said, but Shell also spends “a huge amount of time also working on the prevention.”
He described a four-phase process, starting with proper planning, with the well drilled on paper.
“It’s really understanding what you’ve got before you get into it,” Slaiby said.
Phase two, early kick detection and kick response, is about training and monitoring in “real-time operations centers,” where there is another set of eyes on every well being drilled, “so they’re big-brothering your well and looking at what’s going on.”
Phase three is mechanical barriers, including special Arctic barriers: blowout preventers, adequate controls on well drilling fluids and always maintaining at least two barriers.
The fourth phase, loss of control, is relief well operations with contingency plans in place for the worst case scenario, Slaiby said.
Since May of 2010, Shell has committed to putting a containment system in place, and has committed to build a containment system that would be used in the Arctic and “would be used to capture hydrocarbons before they had a chance to be released.” That equipment would be ready to go for the 2011 drilling season, Slaiby said.
Shell’s three-tier oil spill response — offshore (including the Nanuq response vessel, a tanker and work boats), nearshore (including a barge, work boats, a skimming vessel and mini barges) and onshore (including landing craft and utility vessels) — has been ready to go since 2007. It’s not the result of Macondo, he said. Assets which would be used are owned by or under contract to Shell.
And, until such time as Shell has two floating drilling units working in the Arctic, it will have a dedicated relief well rig, Slaiby said.
While all wells have risks, the wells Shell is planning for the Beaufort and Chukchi seas — in comparison to deepwater Gulf wells — are in shallow water, are simple wells and are not highly pressured, he said.
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