DEC proposes Furie onshore facility approval

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has proposed to approve an owner requested air emissions limit for Furie Operating Alaska’s planned natural gas processing facility on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. The approval would enable the plant to operate without an air emissions permit, provided that emissions from the plant remain below certain specified limits. The emissions that Furie has specified for the plant from gas compressors, an auxiliary generator and a gas flare fall below the threshold at which the need for a minor air permit kicks in, the department says.

The department requires comments on the proposed approval by May 12.

Furie has said that between April and October this year it plans to install an offshore gas production platform in its Cook Inlet Kitchen Light unit, together with a gas pipeline system to shore and an onshore gas processing facility that will deliver natural gas into the Kenai Peninsula gas pipeline infrastructure.

The onshore facility will be located on a 10-acre site near the Cook Inlet Gas Gathering System East Forelands production facility. Twin gas-gathering pipelines will run on the seafloor from the offshore platform. The pipelines will pass underground, from a point outside the intertidal zone, to run under a coastal bluff and emerge at Furie’s onshore facility.

The offshore platform will produce gas from a field that Furie has discovered in its Kitchen Lights unit. Furie’s plan of operations for the field says that the company anticipates production of up to 30 billion cubic feet of gas per year, with each of the twin pipelines initially transporting up to 100 million cubic feet per day of gas.

—Alan Bailey