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Revisiting NPR-A plan
BLM announces intent to prepare new plan to allow more development in reserve
Alan Bailey Petroleum News
On Nov. 20 the Bureau of Land Management issued a notice of intent to prepare a new integrated activity plan and associated environmental impact statement for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The announcement comes as a follow up to an order issued by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke at the end of May 2017, requiring among other things a rework of the existing NPR-A plan, to determine whether more land in the reserve could be opened for oil and gas leasing. The current plan, issued in 2013, places much of the northern part of the reserve off limits to oil and gas leasing and development.
The BLM notice triggered the start of a 45-day period for public comments on the scope of the plan and associated EIS.
“Production from federal leases is being realized 95 years after the then Naval Petroleum Reserve was established,” said Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management Joe Balash. “As development and production increases into the NPR-A, and as advances in technologies are discovered for use on the North Slope of Alaska, the Department of the Interior determined it is appropriate to consider a different approach to management of the NPR-A.”
Current restrictions Through a combination of limitations on areas that can be leased and of limitations on where infrastructure can be built, the current NPR-A plan places much of the northern part of the reserve off limits to oil and gas development. Restricted areas include onshore lands adjacent to Smith Bay and Admiralty Bay. Particularly sensitive is a region around Teshekpuk Lake, a habitat for large numbers of waterfowl, adjacent to caribou calving grounds and goose molting areas. There are also concerns about the sustainability of and access to subsistence resources in the region for local communities.
However, these areas also lie along the line of a major geologic structure called the Barrow Arch that acts as a focus for the migration of oil into North Slope oil field reservoirs.
Oil assessments When BLM’s current integrated activity plan was published, the agency commented that areas within NPR-A that remained open for oil and gas leasing encompassed around 72 percent of the undiscovered, economically recoverable oil in the NPR-A. That statement was based on a U.S. Geological Survey assessment of technically recoverable oil in the reserve. The assessment had focused on the oil potential in what is referred to as the Beaufortian sequence, the rock sequence that includes the reservoir rocks for the Kuparuk River and Alpine oil fields. The USGS scientists had determined that the hydrocarbons in these reservoirs become increasing dominated by natural gas rather than oil, towards the west across the coastal region of the reserve. Hence the conclusion that a relatively high proportion of undiscovered oil lay farther south, under land that subsequently remained available for leasing.
But recent major oil discoveries in the Nanushuk and Torok formations, in the Brookian rock sequence, above the Beaufortian, have caused the USGS to rethink its earlier evaluation, significantly increasing its estimates of the amount of undiscovered oil in the NPR-A, while placing a significant proportion this newly recognized oil potential in the northern part of the reserve.
Economic considerations Economic considerations also play into the debate over NPR-A development. To be viable, an oil development in the remote interior of the refuge, far from any infrastructure, would presumably require a massive oil find. Instead, ConocoPhillips, for example, has been following a strategy of stepping out west into the northeastern NPR-A from the Alpine field, progressively extending the oil infrastructure west through a series of individual developments: CD-5, Mooses Tooth 1 and Mooses Tooth 2. Those particular developments have involved Alpine reservoir sands in the Beaufortian sequence. But the company’s latest NPR-A venture, the Willow field, involves a massive oil pool in that younger Nanushuk formation.
Moving out much farther west than Willow would hit the edge of the special restricted area around Teshekpuk Lake.
And concerns about the environmental sensitivity of areas such as Teshekpuk Lake remain, regardless of how much oil lies underneath. On the other hand, state-of-the-art drilling technologies such as ultra-extended reach drilling can reduce the environmental impacts of oil development.
According to a report by Alaska Public Media Balash has indicated that one significant reason for reworking the NPR-A plan is a need to re-evaluate the restrictions that currently apply to the Teshekpuk Lake area.
Consider opening new areas BLM, in its announcement about the new planning initiative, said that the plan revisions would consider “a range of leasing alternatives that open new areas to leasing.” Current special area boundaries would be examined, while new or revised lease stipulations, together with the incorporation of best management practices, would be considered.
“The new plan will incorporate the most current information and lay out management goals and objectives that are environmentally responsible, respect traditional uses of the land, and maintain access to subsistence resources,” BLM said.
“The planning being initiated today calls for substantial public involvement to include consideration of the State of Alaska’s regional planning efforts for the North Slope,” said Ted Murphy, acting BLM Alaska state director.
Environmentalists oppose However, environmental organizations will clearly remain adamantly opposed to any relaxation of environmental restrictions, especially around the Teshekpuk Lake area.
“Gutting the NPR-A’s land management plan, as we anticipate this administration will do, is outrageous and a complete waste of taxpayer money and agency resources,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska regional director for the Wilderness Society. “Nearly 27 million acres of Arctic Alaska are already available to the oil and gas industry, and just last week the State of Alaska leased over 220,000 acres in the region, demonstrating that there’s plenty of land available for oil development.”
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