|
State issues Peninsula sale final BIF Decision covers 10 years of areawide oil and gas lease sales, includes significant new information based on field, subsurface work Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas has issued a final best interest finding for Alaska Peninsula areawide oil and gas sales from 2015-24.
In a Nov. 26 finding Bill Barron, division director, said potential benefits of sales in the area outweigh possible inverse impacts and that the sales will best serve the interests of the state.
The sale area is some 4 million gross acres onshore and 1.75 million gross acres offshore in state waters, with 1,047 tracts ranging from 640 to 5,760 acres on the north side of the Alaska Peninsula. The annual Alaska Peninsula areawide sale is held in the spring in conjunction with the Cook Inlet areawide sale.
The state said significant new information about the petroleum resource potential of the area has been found since the last best interest finding was issued in 2005, “the result of several years of integrated field and subsurface research led by DNR geologists” (see “The allure of the Alaska Peninsula” in July 27, 2014, issue of Petroleum News).
Reasonable hydrocarbon potential Since 2005, results have become available from several years of “integrated field and subsurface research led by DNR geologists” from the Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys and the Division of Oil and Gas, the decision said.
Past exploration has not yielded commercial production, but “there are indications that the necessary components of active petroleum systems may be present.”
DNR said it anticipates that with “a robust, regionally extensive grid of modern scientific data that will be developed through this phased leasing process” and based on that work “much higher estimates of undiscovered oil and gas will likely result, than previously estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey.”
DNR said 35 exploration wells have been drilled in the Alaska Peninsula area since 1902, 11 within the boundaries of the sale area.
USGS estimated mean undiscovered, technically recoverable onshore Alaska Peninsula reserves at 9 million stock tank barrels and 188 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 1996, and assigned a 32 percent chance that the area is capable of producing at least one technically recoverable accumulation, with technically recoverable not considering economic factors.
Based on recent field and subsurface research, DNR “staff are of the opinion that future resource assessments, if informed by a robust, regionally extensive grid of modern seismic data, would likely result in much higher estimates of undiscovered oil and gas.”
DNR also noted that because the Alaska Peninsula is remote, the area “presents logistical and economic challenges for exploration and development operations.”
| 