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Out for review DNR posts Shell Beaufort Sea exploration plan; Company says it intends to drill in Torpedo and Sivulliq prospects in 2010 Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has released Shell’s new Beaufort Sea plan of exploration for public review, as part of a consistency determination for the Alaska Coastal Management Program. Shell plans to use the drillship Frontier Discoverer to drill one well in its Torpedo prospect and one well in its Sivulliq prospect during the 2010 summer drilling season, the plan says. Both prospects are on the outer continental shelf, on the west side of Camden Bay, north of the eastern end of the North Slope.
DNR has also invited comments on Shell’s Beaufort Sea oil discharge prevention and contingency plan.
Comments on both plans are due by Sept. 30
Sivulliq, formerly known as Hammerhead, contains a known oil pool estimated to contain 100 million to 200 million barrels of technically recoverable oil.
Plan complete In mid-August the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the government agency with jurisdiction over the U.S. outer continental shelf, determined that Shell’s Beaufort Sea exploration plan was complete. MMS is currently carrying out an environmental assessment, prior to deciding whether or not to approve the plan.
The new plan is much reduced from Shell’s earlier 2007 to 2009 Beaufort Sea plan that became the subject of lengthy and unresolved litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. When in May Shell submitted its new plan to MMS for approval, the company said that it had scaled down the plan to address concerns about the cumulative impacts of offshore activities, and to demonstrate its ability to safely conduct offshore drilling.
In its new plan, Shell says that it wants to drill first at the Torpedo H drill site, at 70 degrees 27 minutes 01.6193 seconds north latitude and 145 degrees 49 minutes 32.0650 seconds west longitude. The company will then drill at the Sivulliq N site, at 70 degrees 23 minutes 29.5814 north latitude and 145 degrees 58 minutes 52.5284 seconds west longitude. This drilling sequence could be reversed in the event of “adverse surface conditions or other factors,” the company says.
The wells are planned to be vertical. And a radial array of eight 7-ton anchors will hold the Frontier Discoverer in position above the seafloor.
Six support vessels Shell says that a minimum of six support vessels will provide ice management, anchor handling, oil spill response capability, refueling and the servicing of drilling operations.
The icebreaker Vladimir Ignatjuk, or a similar vessel, will provide the ice management services, maintaining a position 3 to 15 miles upwind of the drilling operation to anticipate sea-ice movement, deflect large ice floes and, if necessary, break the ice. A smaller icebreaker will serve as an auxiliary ice management vessel, in addition to doing the anchor handling for the drillship.
A four-vessel oil spill response fleet will include the Endeavor oil spill response barge and a 500,000-barrel-capacity oil spill response tanker — the tanker will be stationed at a location within a 24-hour sailing time of the drilling operations, with the on-site response vessels having sufficient storage capacity to support an oil spill cleanup until the tanker arrives.
A suitable vessel will resupply the offshore operation from the West Dock at Prudhoe Bay, while helicopters, principally based at Deadhorse, will support crew changes, resupply of provisions and search-and-rescue operations.
And Shell has prepared a plan for curtailing drilling operations, if necessary suspending the well and moving the drillship offsite, in the event of circumstances such as severe weather conditions or a threat to the drillship from sea ice.
Plan of cooperation Shell says that it has developed a plan of cooperation with North Slope communities, to identify measures that the company will take to minimize the impact of the offshore operations on the availability of marine mammals for subsistence hunting. These measures include the suspension of all operations and removal of the drillship and support vessels from the Camden Bay area, beginning Aug. 25 and lasting until the completion of the Cross Island bowhead whale hunt by the Nuiqsut villagers, and the completion of the Kaktovik bowhead whale hunt.
A communications plan involving the use of communications centers in coastal villages will swing into action prior to the start of Shell’s offshore operations and will enable the coordination of exploration and subsistence hunting activities, Shell says. And the company says it will consult with local subsistence advisors for guidance on whale migration and the subsistence hunt. A series of protocols will specify restrictions on aircraft and vessel operations, to minimize impacts on wildlife.
Shell also says that it will try to provide employment opportunities for local residents, and that these opportunities will include work as marine mammal observers, subsistence advisors and communication center staff.
And Shell says that as far as possible it will re-use drilling mud, eventually disposing of water-based fluids at sea after diluting them with sea water. Rock cuttings from drilling operations will be disposed at sea. However, any hazardous waste material from the drilling operations will be transferred onshore to appropriate disposal sites.
Transit July 1 The Frontier Discoverer and the various support vessels will transit the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea around July 1 and arrive near Camden Bay around July 10. Depending on sea-ice conditions, drilling activities will likely last from around July 10 to Oct. 31, except when suspended because of subsistence hunting activities. At the end of the drilling season, all of the vessels will transit back through the Chukchi Sea.
The expense and work involved in ramping up and deploying the equipment and personnel involved in even this scaled-down Beaufort Sea exploration plan will require a go-or-no-go decision at the beginning of 2010, Pete Slaiby, Shell’s Alaska general manager, told Petroleum News Aug. 18.
“All of our energies, right now, in this office are really centering around the decisions we’re going to take to mobe or not mobe the drilling spread in 2010,” Slaiby said. “…That’s a difficult decision, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in getting it wrong.”
Shell has applied to the Environmental Protection Agency for a major air quality permit for the emissions from its drilling operations, but the company is concerned about the length of time that EPA is taking to process the permit, perhaps placing that go-or-no-go decision in jeopardy. EPA has told Petroleum News that it has given Shell’s air quality permit applications for planned drilling in both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas top priority, but that there have been many changes in environmental management since the agency last had to process major air quality permits for the outer continental shelf more than 20 years ago.
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