MMS issues proposal for next Beaufort Sea lease sale
The U.S. Minerals Management Service announced its proposal for its next oil and gas lease sale in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s North Slope, scheduled for March 2007.
The proposed notice outlines the terms of Beaufort Sea Sale 202, and describes the proposed sale area, economic incentives, and requirements for protecting the human, coastal and marine environment.
The sale area includes approximately 1,877 blocks encompassing about 9.7 million acres that extend from the Canadian border on the east to near Barrow on the west, but exclude offshore areas near Barrow and Kaktovik used by the Inupiat for bowhead whale subsistence hunts.
Throughout the sale area MMS said it will require offshore oil and gas activities be "coordinated with the Inupiat whalers during their subsistence hunt."
MMS developed six other lease stipulations to help minimize effects to the environment and to the Inupiat people from any development of the area’s oil and gas resources. The stipulations include site-specific bowhead whale monitoring, consultation with local subsistence communities, booming for fuel transfers, and lighting requirements for protection of spectacled and Steller’s eiders.
MMS estimates that the Beaufort Sea could contain about 7 billion barrels of oil and 32 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (mean estimate of conventionally recoverable resources).
The proposed notice also includes proposed royalty suspensions on the production of oil and condensate, subject to price thresholds.
The proposed notice of sale, environmental assessment and the Beaufort Sea multiple sale EIS are available online at www.mms.gov/alaska.
Note: Watch for the full story in the Nov. 5 issue of Petroleum News, available online Nov. 3 at www.PetroleumNews.com.
Rutter: Perf Drill test a bust, will use drill rig in spring
Northwest Territories Premier Stephen Kakfwi has called on the Canadian government to “take a clear stand in the national interest,” and oppose U.S. Senate moves to offer $10 billion in loan guarantees for a North Slope gas pipeline along the Alaska Highway.
He told a news conference in Calgary April 18 that Canada could lose billions of dollars in resource revenues if a pipeline from the North Slope is built before a planned pipeline from the Mackenzie Delta.
“If the Americans are going to subsidize, we need our government to stand up and support us,” said Jim Antoine, the Northwest Territories' minister for resources and economic development.
“We are afraid that the Americans, who are supposed to be the champions of free enterprise, are now starting to talk about subsidizing those huge volumes of Alaska gas,” said Kakfwi.
He urged Chretien to be ready to take “strong measures,” including the imposition of punitive tariffs on North Slope gas crossing through Canada to the Lower 48.
“There is no way that people will accept that American gas will flow through this country at the expense of Canadian gas,” Kakfwi said.
hey think the reservoir is, “some 10-12 feet past the reservoir damage,” Rutter said.
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