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Corps pauses Nome deep-water port study Says economics of expanding and deepened port were based mainly on projected oil and gas industry activities in the Chukchi Sea ALAN BAILEY Petroleum News
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced a 12-month pause in work on a feasibility study for deepening and expanding the Port of Nome. The decision comes as part of the fallout from Shell’s announcement that it is pulling out of Arctic offshore oil exploration for the foreseeable future.
Increasing marine traffic and offshore industrial activity in response to the shrinking extent of Arctic sea ice have triggered a long-standing debate over the need for an Alaska Arctic port that can handle deep-draft vessels. And early this year the Corps published a report selecting Nome as the preferred option among 14 possible port sites for the establishment of the first deep-draft port in Arctic Alaska.
Economics undermined But in an Oct. 26 press release the Corps said that Shell’s Arctic withdrawal undermined both the economic assumptions for the Nome project and the overall justification for the project. Most of the economic benefit from the deepening of the Nome port would come from cost savings as a result of reduced travel distances for oil and gas support vessels operating in the Chukchi Sea - by using Nome as a base port, vessels could save 1,600 miles per round trip, the Corps said. Currently, the nearest deep-draft port to the Chukchi is in the Aleutian Islands.
Although, in general, the Corps would terminate a study that could not be economically justified, “because of the dynamic nature of the oil and gas industry and the strong interest in enhanced Arctic marine infrastructure the Corps and its partners have decided to pause the study, rather than terminate it,” the Corps said.
Continuous monitoring During the 12-month suspension period the Corps and its partners will monitor Arctic activities to determine whether there is potential for continuing the study. Then, at the end of the period, the Corps, the state of Alaska and the city of Nome will assess whether to resume the study, either in its current form or with a changed scope, the Corps said. The Corps is also inviting comments on its action by email at [email protected].
The concept that the Corps and its partners have been studying involves adding a 450-foot caisson dock to the existing Nome harbor, demolishing an existing spur breakwater, expanding the harbor’s causeway and dredging the floor of the harbor to a water depth of 28 feet, at an estimated cost of more than $200 million. The modified harbor would be able to accommodate offshore industry supply vessels, for example, but not icebreakers.
Deepening the harbor further, to say 35 feet, would entail dredging and disposing a much larger volume of dredge material, an exercise that would cost more and pose a greater environmental challenge.
During conferences and planning meetings conducted by the Corps and the state of Alaska a few years ago to identify Arctic infrastructure needs, Arctic stakeholders identified deep-draft vessel support as a top priority requirement.
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