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June 2011

Vol. 16, No. 23 Week of June 05, 2011

Corps beginning EIS for road to Umiat

The three-year process begins with scoping sessions this year; the road would increase access to western oil and gas fields

Eric Lidji

For Petroleum News

The State of Alaska is permitting a road to Umiat.

The Alaska District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced May 20 that it is preparing a draft Environmental Impact Statement of an all-season gravel road connecting the Dalton Highway to the foothills of the Brooks Range Mountains, a project outlined last year by the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities.

The Army Corps will take comments on the proposed scope of the EIS through July 5, hold five scoping meetings — in Fairbanks, Anchorage, Nuiqsut, Barrow and Anaktuvuk Pass — between June 8 and June 16, and release a final scoping document this fall.

The Army Corps plans to publish the draft EIS early next summer and publish a final EIS in the summer of 2013 following a standard public comment and meeting process.

The Foothills West road aims to promote exploration and production by increasing access to several known oil and natural gas fields on state land in the northwestern foothills of the Brooks Range, and federal lands in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

DOT&PF envisions the project unfolding in two phases, an 85-mile section from the Dalton Highway to the Gubik gas fields and a 15-mile section heading north to Umiat.

Industrial project

The road is progressing as an industrial project. Early plans call for it to be closed to the public during exploration season and possibly year-round, but DOT&PF noted that it “may eventually be open to the general public.” Because many of the communities along the proposed corridor are proudly rural, that issue could become a major point of debate.

DOT&PF spent the summer of 2009 studying potential corridors for the road and eventually chose a $357 million route starting at Galbraith Lake at milepost 278 on the Dalton Highway. The EIS process, though, must consider all reasonable alternate routes.

Because the final route could end up crossing six major rivers — the Anaktuvuk, Chandler, Colville, Itkillik, Kuparuk and Toolik — the EIS will also consider bridges, but while the hypothetical bridges would be designed to hold industrial loads like pipelines, DOT&PF is not proposing and the EIS is not considering pipelines at this time.

The EIS process will also reveal whether the North Slope communities near the proposed road are in favor of the project or not. In public meetings to date, residents have expressed concern about the potential impact of the road on caribou migration patterns.

The fiscal year 2012 capital budget currently awaiting approval from Gov. Sean Parnell includes an $8 million allocation for the Foothills West project through the Roads to Resources program. Parnell included the line in his proposed budget for the year.

Although known as an oil and gas prone region for nearly a century, the western foothills of the Brooks Range have essentially been stranded because of their isolation.

President Warren G. Harding created the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 in 1923, the precursor to NPR-A. The U.S. Geologic Survey studied the region soon after, but ultimately decided that exploration would be “wildcatting of the most speculative kind.”

The USGS and the U.S. Navy drilled numerous wells across the region during World War II, discovering oil and gas fields that attract exploration companies to this day.

The Foothills West road would immediately improve the economics of two projects.

Anadarko Petroleum began exploring for natural gas in the Gubik Complex in 2008, eventually drilling four wells. While all four wells encountered natural gas to some degree, Anadarko did not return to the area in either of the last two drilling seasons and over the past year the company relinquished a significant amount of acreage in the area.

Meanwhile, Renaissance Alaska believes that a road is crucial to its plans to explore on its four leases around Umiat, a field estimated to hold 250 million barrels of oil.

The Houston independent holds four federal drilling permits for that acreage, but because of delays those might have to be renewed by the time Renaissance is ready to explore.

Still, Renaissance believes it can piggyback on planning efforts in the region.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is currently preparing a new integrated activity plan for NPR-A. During a scoping session last fall Renaissance executive Mark Landt asked the federal agency to include an Umiat development scenario, along with accompanying road and infrastructure projects, in its plan as a way to avoid duplication.






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