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AIDEA issues ANWR consulting RFP, wants to progress seismic permitting
Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority has issued a request for proposals for consultancy work in conjunction with anticipated seismic surveying for the agency's oil and gas leases on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The agency is seeking a consultant to complete and prepare the environmental field work and documentation for the permitting of a multi-year seismic surveying program.
AIDEA says that it anticipates work being done under the proposed contract between Sept. 1, 2023, and Aug. 31, 2024, with the possibility of three additional one-year extensions. Bids must be delivered to AIDEA by Sept. 8, 2023.
Federal moratorium Currently there is a federal moratorium on the permitting of any lease related work in ANWR, pending the completion of a supplementary environmental impact statement for the ANWR lease sale program. Recently the federal District Court in Alaska rejected an appeal by AIDEA, the State of Alaska and others against the moratorium.
AIDEA has told Petroleum News that it has issued the RFP in anticipation of the imminent completion of the SEIS -- the agency wants to be able to move forward with its ANWR exploration activities as soon as possible, assuming that the moratorium will be lifted. It is also possible that some preparatory office work associated with the environmental permitting could be conducted while the moratorium is still in place.
The lease sale program After many years, during which ANWR oil and gas leasing remained off limits, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by Congress in 2017, mandated two lease sales for the coastal plain. The Bureau of Land Management conducted the first of these lease sales in January 2021, with AIDEA, Knik Arm Services LLC and Regenerate Alaska purchasing leases in the sale. However, in 2021 the incoming Biden administration ruled that the lease sale EIS was deficient, with BLM then placing a moratorium on the permitting of ANWR lease related activities until the EIS had been reworked.
Knik Arm Services and Regenerate Alaska subsequently relinquished their leases, while AIDEA retained its leases.
BLM has indicated that it anticipates issuing the draft supplementary EIS in the third quarter of this year. The SEIS development is now running more than a year behind its original schedule.
A controversial program There have been vehement arguments both for and against the lease sale program.
AIDEA, with its role of supporting business in Alaska, strongly endorses the opening of the ANWR coastal plain for oil and gas exploration and development -- the state of Alaska sees the potential for jobs and state revenues from oil and gas activities in the region. The North Slope Borough, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and Kaktovik Inupiat Corp, the Native corporation for the only village in the ANWR coastal plain, have also expressed strong support for the leasing program.
Supporters of the program argue that the environment on the coastal plain can be adequately protected, and that any potential oil and gas development would have a relatively small surface footprint. The leasing program only applies to the coastal plain in the northerly part of the refuge.
The Gwich'in Native people of northern Alaska and Canada have, on the other hand, expressed strong objections to ANWR oil development. The Gwich'in are particularly concerned about the possible impact of oil industry activities on the Porcupine caribou herd that calves on the coastal plain and is a primary subsistence food source for them.
Environmental organizations are also strongly opposed to oil and gas activities in ANWR, arguing that these activities would cause irreparable damage to the natural environment in the refuge.
--ALAN BAILEY
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