BLM planning for full field development in NPR-A

Patricia Jones, PNA contributing writer

Federal land managers overseeing current exploration and anticipated development work in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska need to “catch up” with industry’s interest in tapping oil and gas on the western part of the North Slope.

That’s according to Bob Schneider, field manager for the Fairbanks office of the Bureau of Land Management, which is responsible for permitting and monitoring surface activities in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

He said he anticipates BLM will receive a full field development proposal this fall from Phillips Alaska Inc., one of three companies that have drilled a total of 13 exploration wells in NPR-A in the last three years.

“We have to catch up, because there’s been a lot of activity since 1999,” he said, referring to the first NPR-A lease sale, during a presentation to the agency’s NPR-A Research and Monitoring Team in Fairbanks on May 29. “Just from an agency perspective, we’re a little behind.”

BLM needs to augment the few baseline environmental studies ongoing or slated to begin this summer in the northeast portion of NPR-A to prepare for a development proposal expected from Phillips Petroleum, he added.

“They have found a commercial discovery,” Schneider told the RMT group, in his presentation about NPR-A’s current activity level.

He later told PNA that he was referring to the exploration success announced in 2001 by Phillips and their partner Anadarko Petroleum. The two companies publicly revealed about a year ago that five of six wells drilled in 2001 hit oil or gas and condensates. Flow rates from two of the wells were also announced then.

The two companies remain tight-lipped about results from the four exploration wells drilled in NPR-A this year.

“I don’t even know — I can’t get my guys to tell me where they want to put our own well until the last minute,” said Robert Elder, staff environmental advisor at Anadarko, an alternate member of the BLM oversight team.

Phillips representatives have said that a commercial decision has yet to be made regarding the five successful exploration wells drilled last year.

BLM expects proposal in October

Schneider told PNA that the agency had anticipated a discovery announcement and correlating full field development proposal from Phillips this summer, but that decision has been pushed back, possibly until the merger between Conoco and Phillips is completed, which company officials have said should be final in September. In the meantime, federal law prohibits Conoco and Phillips employees from talking about exploration plays and development plans.

“At this point, they’re moving forward. Their engineering people seem to think it will go,” Schneider said. “But until they dig the dirt … we won’t know. And we don’t know exactly where it will be, and we need to be ready if it happens.”

BLM already has a person working with the development team, Schneider said. “We anticipate getting a development proposal in October, if it comes,” he added.