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Exxon still waiting for right of way
Alaska officials don’t plan to issue ExxonMobil a pipeline right of way for its Point Thomson development until after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decides on a wetlands permit for the project.
A spokesman for the Alaska pipeline coordinator’s office said staff has been working diligently to draft a lease for the line, which would run 22 miles over state land along the Beaufort Sea coast to connect the Point Thomson field with the Badami pipeline to the west.
The coordinator’s office expects to finish the draft lease by March and then share it with ExxonMobil, spokesman Graham Smith said.
But the coordinator’s office, part of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, won’t issue a final, signed lease until after federal regulators act.
“Long story short, we’re going to be waiting for the Corps on this one,” Smith said.
The feeling is it would be more efficient to withhold the lease until after the Corps finishes its environmental impact statement and issues its record of decision on the Point Thomson development, Smith said.
But this could mean a considerable wait, as the Corps at last report was running about eight months behind on the EIS. The Corps said it expects to sign its record of decision on March 15, 2012.
PTE Pipeline LLC, a Houston-based affiliate of ExxonMobil Pipeline Co., applied for the state right of way in August 2010.
The pipeline, with a diameter of 12.75 inches, will carry natural gas condensate ExxonMobil intends to produce from the Point Thomson field, located some 60 miles east of Prudhoe Bay.
The Point Thomson pipeline will cost about $80 million to build, with annual operating and maintenance costs of $12 million, the PTE application said.
ExxonMobil is anxious to secure regulatory clearance and get on with the development, as it has pledged publicly to begin production of 10,000 barrels a day of condensate by the end of 2014.
Aside from ExxonMobil, major Point Thomson stakeholders include BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips.
—Wesley Loy
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