|
BOEM expects to publish new draft SEIS for Chukchi this fall
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, has told the federal District Court in Alaska that it is continuing to rework a supplementary environmental impact statement, or SEIS, for the 2008 Chukchi Sea lease sale and that it anticipates publishing a draft SEIS in early October.
The District Court had ordered a rework of the lease sale EIS following a January 2014 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upholding an appeal against the validity of the document. The 9th Circuit judges ruled that, when the U.S. Minerals Management Service, BOEM’s precursor organization, prepared the EIS it had arbitrarily, without explanation, assumed that potential oil development in the Chukchi Sea would only amount to a single oil field, with an estimated 1 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil.
BOEM has to incorporate a better reasoned estimate of the scale of potential Chukchi Sea oil and gas development, taking into account the potential oil spill risk ramifications if the estimates of recoverable oil increase. And, under a District Court order, the agency must regularly report to the court on progress in making the SEIS modifications.
Continuing work In a court filing dated July 18 BOEM said that it is continuing to draft portions of the SEIS chapters relating to the proposed agency action; to the action alternatives and potential mitigation; to the description of the environment; to the environmental consequences; and to cumulative environmental effects. The agency said that it has prepared a draft exploration and development scenario, with estimates of the levels and timing of potential exploration, development and production activities.
BOEM also said that it has also been meeting with other agencies involved in the SEIS preparation.
A contractor is progressing with an oil spill risk assessment using a technique called a “fault tree methodology,” estimating the probability of one or more large oil spills happening over the life of possible exploration and development scenarios in the Chukchi Sea, BOEM said. BOEM has been preparing its computer model for oil spill risk analysis, creating map projections for the analysis and incorporating updated environmental information. And the agency has continued to conduct computer runs of its oil spill trajectory model, to assess the probability of an oil slick reaching specific segments of the coastline or mapped resource areas, BOEM said.
BOEM said that it anticipates completion of the fault-tree analysis and oil spill trajectory runs in August, together with a new assessment of oil trajectory probabilities. That would lead to the publication of a draft SEIS in early October, followed by a 45-day public comment period. A final version of the SEIS should be published in early February 2015, with a new record of decision for the lease sale following after a 30-day mandatory waiting period.
The agency said that it is committing maximum resources to the project, including the authorization of overtime, to ensure that the planned completion dates are achieved.
Leases suspended As a consequence of the 9th Circuit decision and the continuation of the appeal case in District Court BOEM has suspended all leases issued from the 2008 lease sale until the agency issues a new record of decision for the sale. Shell, one of the companies that purchased leases in the 2008 sale, started drilling a well in its Chukchi Sea Burger prospect in 2012 but subsequently suspended the drilling program following a series of problems, including the grounding of the company’s Kulluk floating drilling platform. The company has said that it hopes to restart its Chukchi Sea drilling program in the summer of 2015.
The District Court has given BOEM permission to work on documentation relating to Chukchi Sea exploration, but the agency cannot make decisions such as exploration plan approvals unless there is a new record of decision affirming the lease sale.
More information needed In its status report BOEM said that the Chukchi Sea lease suspensions remain in effect but that on May 2 Shell delivered a response to a request that BOEM had issued in January for additional information relating to the company’s Chukchi Sea exploration plan. On June 19 BOEM notified Shell about further information that the agency requires for completion of the plan. Based on the court’s instructions, however, the agency will not deem the plan complete until after the new record of decision for the lease sale has been issued, BOEM told the court.
- Alan Bailey
|
