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ACMP process begins for Point Thomson drilling
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has started the clock for a 50-day coastal consistency review of ExxonMobil’s proposal to drill as many as seven wells in the former Point Thomson unit on Alaska’s eastern North Slope. The company told the state it wants to drill one well per year from two pads, beginning in the 2008-09 winter exploration season.
Formed in 1977, the Point Thomson unit was dissolved by DNR in late 2006. The department has since terminated all of the Point Thomson leases, but Exxon and its partners have taken action to reverse both the lease and unit decisions via an administrative appeal to DNR’s commissioner and by filing several lawsuits with the Alaska Superior Court. The various legal motions were filed individually by the former operator of the unit, leaseholder Exxon, and by three other former leaseholders, Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips.
The court has consolidated all of the motions on DNR’s unit termination decision into one case and is expected to hear oral arguments Oct. 5. According to Nan Thompson, petroleum manager for DNR’s Division of Oil and Gas, the Superior Court judge hearing the case, Sharon Gleason, has a record of issuing decisions promptly.
Thompson said DNR Commissioner Tom Irwin is expected to issue his decision on the leases after Gleason rules.
Review labor intensive The review for consistency with the Alaska Coastal Management Program by DNR’s Office of Project Management and Permitting is a “laborious exercise” that could burn hundreds of employee hours for the state, federal and borough agencies involved, Ben Greene told Petroleum News Aug. 13. Greene is in charge of OPMP’s review of Exxon’s exploration proposal.
If DNR hadn’t started the 50-day ACMP clock, another 90-day deadline would have given Exxon ACMP approval by default, Greene said, explaining that the state’s permitting clock started in mid-July. If OPMP does not make a consistency determination by the end of 90 days, “an applicant can assume consistency.”
But there is another milestone in the process at day 25 of the 50-day review that allows a stakeholder to submit a request for additional information that can stop both the 50-day and the 90-day clocks.
“That deadline is Sept. 4. We expect DNR to submit an RFAI,” asking Exxon to substantiate ownership of the leases, Greene said.
That’s something Thompson believes Exxon will have trouble doing because of DNR’s decision to terminate the leases and the pending administrative appeal.
When asked why Exxon had applied to drill the wells, company spokeswoman Margaret Ross told Petroleum News Aug. 13 that “the seven wells proposed in the drilling permit applications have been placed to maintain Point Thomson leases,” something “Point Thomson lease agreements and current Alaska statutes” give the company the right to do.
Insulated ice pad this winter In its proposal Exxon said the drilling timetable would depend on the availability of materials and equipment, and that “sufficient time would be required to specify, contract, properly equip and mobilize a drilling rig capable of drilling the high pressure, directional wells at Point Thomson,” which is why Exxon plans to begin drilling the winter after next.
The drilling rig would come from the Prudhoe Bay area or Canada, and start drilling around Feb. 1, 2009, Exxon said.
Equipment, materials and supplies would be barged to the Point Thomson unit No. 3 gravel pad during the summer and staged there for winter use.
Exxon said it is looking at using “synthetic matting boards in lieu of, or in conjunction with, ice pads, and constructing an ice pad during the winter of 2007-2008 and insulating it so that it would be preserved over the following summer.”
Year-round drilling feasible The company said “year around drilling and well operations in the Point Thomson area have historically been done and are feasible,” but it did not elaborate beyond saying activities after the first well “can not be described precisely, and this plan of operations would be modified following completion of the first well and before beginning the second well.” The wells would be “directionally drilled” from 600 by 600-foot ice pads, Exxon said.
A 57-mile long “sea-ice access road would be built from the Prudhoe Bay area to the general Point Thomson area during each winter drilling season.” The 150-foot wide road would “follow the coastline eastward from the Endicott causeway to the vicinity of the Point Thomson unit #3 drill site and the planned Eastern Pad,” Exxon said.
A 200-foot wide by 5,000-foot long ice runway might also be constructed on sea ice.
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