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Vol. 23, No.13 Week of April 01, 2018
Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry

Open for comments

BLM publishes draft SEIS for the development of Greater Mooses Tooth 2

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

The federal Bureau of Land Management has published a draft environmental impact statement for ConocoPhillips’ proposed Greater Mooses Tooth 2 development in the northeastern National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The EIS supplements an earlier EIS, published by BLM in 2004, for the development of satellite fields for the Alpine oil field in the Colville River Delta region of Alaska’s North Slope.

4-acre pad

The preferred development alternative in the draft SEIS involves a 14-acre gravel drill pad that could ultimately host up to 48 wells, with about half being production wells and the remainder injectors. An 8.2-mile gravel access road would run northeast to the GMT-1 drill pad. An 8.6-mile pipeline system would follow a similar route to the road, to connect to an existing pipeline infrastructure at GMT-1. There would be no airstrip at GMT-2, although helicopters would be able to access the site for emergency response and some other designated activities.

The access road would not cross any major streams or rivers, so no bridges would be required. However, culverts would ensure the maintenance of natural drainage. The road would include three pullouts to allow local residents access to the area for subsistence use. And, as far as possible, a minimum distance of 500 feet would be maintained between the road and the pipelines, to minimize caribou disturbance.

The draft SEIS indicates that the pipeline system from GMT-2 to GMT-1 would consist of a 20-inch line for the transportation of produced crude oil, gas and water from the drill site; a 14-inch line for the transportation of seawater to the site for water injection into the oil reservoir; a 6-inch gas pipeline for carrying gas for gas injection; and power and fiber optic cables. The pipeline supports would be sized to accommodate the future possibility of a 24-in pipeline. Produced fluids would be processed in the central facility for the Alpine field.

The GMT-2 project would also require new 20-inch produced fluids pipelines, installed on permitted pipe racks, between the CD1 pad and the central processing facility, and a new miscible injectant pipeline along part of that route.

BLM requires public comments on the draft SEIS by May 7.

Complete in Q4 2021

On March 23 ConocoPhillips applied for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit for the proposed project. According to the application, the company has two alternative development plans, one starting in the fourth quarter of 2018 and the other starting in the fourth quarter of 2019. Both would see construction completed in the fourth quarter of 2021, at which point oil production would begin. Construction would take place during the winter, making use of seasonal ice roads and ice pads. According to the draft SEIS, development drilling would begin during the final year of construction.

ConocoPhillips has said that it anticipates oil production at rates of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels per day from GMT-2, with the project costing around $1.5 billion.

The draft SEIS says that key issues identified in relation to the GMT-2 development revolve around impacts to surface resources, in particular subsistence resources. The proximity of the village of Nuiqsut raises particular concerns about subsistence impacts, given the possibility of the project affecting access to areas used for subsistence hunting and the availability of subsistence resources such as caribou. Aircraft traffic, oil spills and the eventual rehabilitation of the land impacted by the infrastructure could also impact these resources and subsistence activities, the draft SEIS says.

The Corps of Engineers application says that ConocoPhillips proposes to coat the pipelines with a non-shiny coating, to avoid bright flashes from sunlight that might frighten caribou.

Lease stipulations

The draft SEIS says that the actions considered for the GMT-2 development address environmental concerns through the incorporation of lease stipulations set for the Greater Mooses Tooth unit in general. However, BLM is considering partial deviations from two of these stipulations: ConocoPhillips has requested that the access road can pass within 500 feet of a lake, and that the road and the pipeline system be less than 500 feet apart at four locations. The company has said that it is not technically feasible to avoid these separation exceptions.

While the planned pad will be located entirely on federally managed land, the proposed pipeline and road corridors cross both federally managed land and land owned by Kuukpik Corp., the Native village corporation of Nuiqsut.

In the draft SEIS BLM says that under the terms of various statutes, including the Mineral Leasing Act, the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act and the Clean Water Act, the agency must respond to ConocoPhillips’ request for permits to develop GMT-2.

Evolving plans

The plans for the GMT-2 development have evolved over the years, starting in 2004 with a proposal for a 9.1-acre drill pad and a 6.3-mile gravel access road. Following the drilling of a series of Spark and Rendezvous exploration wells, with the subsequent better delineation of the subsurface petroleum resource, ConocoPhillips proposed a pad location south of the location envisaged in 2004, to optimize the potential for oil production, the draft SEIS says. A 2015 project proposal placed the pad 1.9 miles southeast of the location planned in 2004, with the location designed to mitigate impacts on Arctic peregrine falcons, an endangered species, and to lie north of the boundary of the Colville River Special Area, an area of falcon nesting sites.

The preferred development alternative in the draft SEIS corresponds to ConocoPhillips’ proposed plan for the development. Other alternatives considered involved an alternative alignment of the access road, a roadless development with year-round drilling, and a no-action alternative. Alternatives previously considered but rejected for the development included the establishment of an operations center in Nuiqsut and a roadless development with seasonal drilling. The use of Nuiqsut as a hub was determined to be impractical, while the seasonal drilling alternative appeared uneconomic over a wide range of potential oil prices, the draft SEIS says.



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