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Back at work Superior Court judge says Forest can resume work on final exploration well at Redoubt; Cook Inlet Keeper also challenges state-approved development plans Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
Work at Forest Oil Corp.’s Osprey platform at Redoubt Shoal in Cook Inlet has been off again and on again since April because of court actions by Trustees for Alaska on behalf of Cook Inlet Keeper.
But the company got the go ahead from Superior Court in Anchorage June 13 to resume drilling and has gone back to work.
The Nabors Alaska Drilling Inc. crew had been sent home June 12 — for the second time, Forest Oil’s Gary Carlson, senior vice president of the company’s Alaska business unit, told PNA. But at a hearing in Superior Court the morning of June 13, Carlson said, the judge decided the state had met Supreme Court requirements for a new consistency determination for the exploration phase of the project.
Carlson said the judge told Forest that there is no longer an injunction: the company has its permits and can go back to drilling.
So Forest had Nabors recall the crews they had just sent home. Carlson said drilling resumed June 14. Forest has gone to grind and inject The ironic thing, he said, is that the 1999 lawsuit was against dumping of water-based cuttings into the inlet, which a general permit from the Environmental Protection Agency allows for the entire Cook Inlet. But Forest, he said, went to grind and inject during the drilling of the fifth well.
Trustees for Alaska, which brought suit on behalf of Cook Inlet Keeper against the use of a general permit allowing dumping of cuttings into the inlet during the exploration phase at Redoubt, disagreed with the Superior Court’s decision on the new exploration phase consistency determination, ordered by the Supreme Court.
Trustees said the state didn’t do a good job in the new determination and wanted the court to again order work stopped. Carlson said Trustees’ arguments on the issue were due June 14; Forest’s response June 17. Crews also sent home in April The first time Forest sent Nabors’ crews home, Carlson said, was at the end of April. Forest was trying to get relief from the April 19 injunction which halted drilling of the fifth exploration well at the Redoubt Shoals field in Cook Inlet.
Carlson said Forest had Nabors call its crews back to work doing additional work on existing wells, but not drilling the fifth well. Forest ran out of that kind of work June 12, he said, so sent the crew home again.
The Superior Court hearing which allowed drilling to resume was not scheduled until the morning of June 13, Carlson said. Development work under way Forest has drilled several successful wells at Redoubt Shoal, beginning with the Redoubt Unit No. 1, which the company announced as a discovery wells in February 2001. Forest said the well had been successfully logged and tested. Approximately 450 feet of net pay was logged in the well, which had a total depth of 15,323 feet and tested at 1,010 barrels per day from the Hemlock formation.
By this April, when Forest announced success at the Redoubt No. 4 delineation well, the company was estimating recoverable oil at Redoubt to be at least 100 million barrels.
Forest is converting the Osprey platform for production, building production facilities onshore and pipelines to connect the platform with the onshore facilities. First production from Redoubt is expected by year’s end.
Cook Inlet Keeper has also appealed the final consistency determination for the Redoubt Shoal development project, arguing that the project is not consistent with the Alaska Coastal Management Program and asking state Superior Court to vacate the Division of Governmental Coordination’s final consistency determination for the project and remand the determination to the division for a new consistency review.
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