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Vol. 24, No.45 Week of November 10, 2019
Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry

AOGCC proposes repeal of outdated regs

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Petroleum News

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has published a notice of repeal of regulations which it describes as “outdated, unnecessary or duplicative.” A more detailed description is available on the agency’s website: www.commerce.alaska.gov/web/aogcc/Home.aspx.

The notice is dated Nov. 1. A hearing on the proposed changes will be held Dec. 10 beginning at 10 a.m. at the commission’s Anchorage offices; comments will be accepted until 4:30 p.m. Dec. 10, after which the commission said it may adopt the proposed regulatory changes or other provisions dealing with the same subject.

One of the regulations requires testing of gas wells by a multi-point back-pressure method before regular production with test results and calculations reported to the commission on a specified form within 30 days. The commission said the requirement is outdated because it does not use the reports in any decision-making capacity, so eliminating the requirement for the report “and only requiring the operator submit a test report, in whatever format they normally receive them, if they close to conduct one, would remove an unnecessary testing and reporting burden from the operator.”

Another regulation proposed for repeal concerns well control requirements and would be eliminated because it “is unnecessary and duplicative as it is covered adequately in other sections.”

A regulation on reserve pits and tankage “is outdated and outside the authority of AOGCC and is more substantively covered by ADEC regulations,” the commission said. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation regulates storage of drilling waste, drilling waste monofills and closure of inactive reserve pits, and the commission said ADEC has confirmed that it does not refer to AOGCC’s regulations. ADEC regulations require that storage plans be submitted to ADEC in advance of operations and that storage may not begin until the plan is approved by ADEC.

A regulation covering common production facilities is redundant because of other commission requirements for custody transfer measurement and allocation measurement, and can be eliminated completely, the commission said.

A regulation prohibiting production or transportation of crude oil or natural gas in violation of regulations and orders of the commission “is extremely vague and overly board,” and AOGCC said it has greater flexibility through emergency actions and through robust enforcement.

A regulation for emergency open pit storage of oil is being repealed, the commission said, as no statute applying to AOGCC gives it authority for the regulation. “ADEC would be the more appropriate agency of jurisdiction,” the commission said.

Finally, a regulation requiring original signatures “is unnecessary and can be better handled by a guidance document.”



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