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State takes comments on risk assessment Citizen watchdog groups question scope and method of project to measure the risk to oil and gas infrastructure across Alaska Eric Lidji Petroleum News
As the state works to create a model for measuring the risks threatening oil and gas infrastructure in Alaska, some are worried the scope of the project isn’t broad enough.
A contractor with the Department of Environmental Conservation presented an early draft of the mathematical model on May 5 in Anchorage. The model is designed to gauge the type, likelihood and intensity of events that could harm oil and gas infrastructure, causing significant environmental damage, safety problems or losses in state revenues.
The draft of the model follows months of meetings across the state, where contractor Emerald/ABS met with stakeholders from industry, local government, and the public.
The May 5 presentation in Anchorage, the first of several to be held around the state, was formatted as a workshop where the public could learn about and comment on a draft of the methodology. The comments will go toward revising the methodology this summer.
Watchdogs challenge state Several citizen watchdog groups attended the meeting and challenged the state on the progress of the risk assessment, saying the methodology still contained gaps.
“The name of the study right now is misleading,” Lois Epstein, an engineer and watchdog of the oil industry, said in reference to material calling the study “comprehensive.”
The assessment covers wells, pipelines, processing centers, storage tanks and marine loading facilities on the North Slope, in the Cook Inlet basin and along the corridor of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, some 4,000 separate pieces of infrastructure. It doesn’t cover refineries, marine traffic, distribution grids, exploration work or future developments.
Some, like Gabe Scott with the Cascadia Wildlands Project, said the scope should be broadened to include “secondary impacts,” like problems associated with an oil spill.
“My concern is that this study is going to illustrate those risks as ‘zeros,’” Scott said.
The “zero” refers to a complex ranking system within the model designed to guide policymakers’ decisions about where to direct attention when it comes to infrastructure.
This “matrix” sets up a way to feed in information about the consequences of various reliability issues, such as the loss in state revenue associated with a loss of production.
Inlet shutdown wouldn’t register Under the terms of the matrix, the entire Cook Inlet oil production could be shut down — at an approximate cost about $45,000 a day — without registering on the scale.
“It won’t capture reliability issues in Cook Inlet because of the small production,” said Vinnie Catalano with the Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Council.
The purpose of the meetings is to “take the pulse” of the stakeholders, according to Ira Rosen, project manager with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The team hosting the workshop also planned meetings in Kenai, Valdez and Fairbanks.
Rosen said the state was forced to limit the scope of the project because of funding, but that any information gathered for this study can be used on future or related studies.
One issue that remains outstanding is the level of involvement from industry.
The state and the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, which is representing the oil and gas industry for this project, are still trying to come to terms on ways the industry can share confidential information with the state, without having that information become public.
Rosen noted the unusual nature of the state, as a major land and resource owner, performing a risk assessment on equipment built, owned and managed by industry.
“The state is doing a risk assessment of someone else’s property,” Rosen said.
Assessment dates back to 2006 The risk assessment can be traced to high-profile oil spills at Prudhoe Bay in 2006 caused by corrosion in gathering lines at the North Slope field. Gov. Sarah Palin announced the program in May 2007, a few weeks after forming the Petroleum Systems Integrity Office.
The Department of Environmental Conservation, as the lead agency on the multiagency project, hired Emerald/ABS in June 2008. The contractor is a joint venture between the local company Doyon Emerald and the international firm ABS Consulting.
The contract is for some $5 million and will run through summer 2010.
Emerald/ABS is currently finishing the first phase of the program. The second phase involves implementing the methodology. The third phase involves data analysis.
The company said it expects to have a final methodology complete around August.
The National Academy of Sciences will conduct a peer review of the model. Although members of the group attended the May 5 meeting, they did not comment on the model.
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