|
Legal ace joins state resources team Former RCA chairwoman takes helm of units section in Alaska Division of Oil and Gas to guide application of laws, policies Rose Ragsdale Petroleum News
It’s likely that G. Nanette Thompson, the newly appointed petroleum manager for the Division of Oil and Gas in the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, has never worked a day in Alaska’s oil fields.
Still, “Nan,” as she is known to her friends and associates, knows her way around the oil patch.
That’s because Thompson, a Seattle-trained lawyer, has come into her own over the past 24 years mapping the terrain of Alaska’s laws and policies, especially those governing the state’s oil and gas industry.
“Nan knows the law backwards and forwards,” said acting division Director Kevin Banks, her new boss since Jan. 8. “Her experience as an assistant Attorney General in the state’s Oil, Gas and Mining Section where she worked for years with our ‘units’ people is top notch. It’s a real feather in our cap to get that kind of talent.”
Thompson is probably best known for her years of service to the state as chairwoman of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska. But prior to the four-year term (1999-2003) and for one year after, she served as a commissioner for both RCA and its predecessor, the Alaska Public Utilities Commission.
In addition, she spent years in private practice as an attorney with oil and gas companies among her clients and two stints working in the AG’s office in Alaska.
Educated at Stanford University and the University of Washington School of Law, Thompson came to Alaska in 1983.
Before acting DNR Commissioner Marty Rutherford appointed her to the division in January, Thompson had worked for two years as vice president of federal policy for GCI.
Legal review part of the job description now As petroleum manager, she now oversees a team of four specialists who oversee oil and gas units for Alaska and works closely with the division’s commercial and resource management sections.
“I was hired to make sure the state’s statutes and regulations governing units were consistently applied across units statewide to encourage oil and gas development,” Thompson said in a recent interview with Petroleum News.
The need for this kind of oversight is the result of growth in the units section in recent years. Before 1999, the state had only one unit manager because there were many fewer units, she said.
“Now there are three unit managers, and I just hired another (one). It’s these managers whose efforts I supervise and coordinate,” Thompson said. “The goal is to consistently apply policies across all units statewide.”
Thompson also works with the division’s commercial and resource teams to help coordinate their contribution to the unitization process, she said.
Industry expectations Thompson said her overall goal is to facilitate oil and gas development, which will benefit the state from a revenue perspective and benefit industry as well.
In just two months on the job, she has already met representatives of many oil and gas companies.
“Part of the process of managing units is reviewing plans of exploration and plans of development with them, and they usually present them in person. And even if they submit them in writing, if we have questions, we ask them to come in and point things out on the map or answer questions face to face. So I’ve had many opportunities since I started to meet with folks,” she explained.
While her experience at RCA helps, Thompson said she functioned more as an adjudicator in that job, and, at the division, she is finding the process is much more interactive.
“We also have much more in the way of resources here,” she added.
Part of Thompson’s role will be to analyze the state’s administration of oil and gas units and ensure that criteria specified for plans of exploration are logical.
For example, there are differences in the specific criteria required in Cook Inlet and North Slope units, she said.
“I’m not sure these distinctions make sense,” she opined. “We have to be clearer about policies we are going to apply.”
What can oil and gas companies expect from Thompson?
“They can expect me to ask questions, and they should be expecting me to be willing to (answer them, too),” she said.
Banks praised Thompson’s organizational skills and said “she has been invaluable so far in the effort to craft the Alaska Gas Inducement Act.”
Editor's note: Thompson's predecessor was Bill Van Dyke. Respected by co-workers and industry alike, Van Dyke had been the division's petroleum manager since 1981. After Mark Myers stepped down in late 2005, Van Dyke served as acting division director until Sarah Palin took office in December 2006. Van Dyke joined DNR as a reservoir engineer in 1978, after having previously worked as a petroleum engineer for Chevron Oil Co. and Gulf Oil Co. Van Dyke holds a bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering from Pennsylvania State University and is a registered petroleum engineer in Alaska.
| 