South NPR-A planning formally ended

A notice published Sept. 17 in the Federal Register restates a decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, announced in May, to formally discontinue preparation of the integrated activity plan for the south portion of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and its accompanying environmental impact statement.

Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Stephen Allred said in a May 14 statement that planning for South NPR-A was stopped in response to “comments from local communities during our public outreach effort.” Allred said that at public meetings in 2006 local residents expressed concern over potential impacts to subsistence resources, especially the western Arctic caribou herd, whose primary calving area is within the 9.2 million acre South NPR-A.

Allred said “BLM weighed the practicality of energy development and determined it is not appropriate at this time in the South NPR-A” (see story in May 20 issue of Petroleum News at www.petroleumnews.com/pnads/635323343.shtml).

BLM resource assessments indicate the South NPR-A planning area contains limited oil reserves, estimated to be just 2.1 percent of the undiscovered oil in NPR-A. Although the area contains an estimated 27 percent of NPR-A’s undiscovered natural gas reserves, there is no transportation system to move the gas to market.

—Kristen Nelson