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A second look Alaska re-evaluates deferred Beaufort Sea tracts; might offer in 2004 sale Kristen Nelson Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas is going to take another look at tracts it pulled out of its Beaufort Sea areawide leasing program. The division said July 29 it is reevaluating two areas currently deferred from leasing for inclusion in the October 2004 Beaufort Sea areawide lease sale.
Division Leasing Manager Jim Hansen told Petroleum News the state met with the U.S. Minerals Management Service when the federal agency was setting terms for outer continental shelf oil and gas lease sale 186, scheduled for Sept. 24. Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski requested that MMS reevaluate their deferred areas and told them the state was going to begin the same process.
“This is the beginning of that process to determine what those deferrals should be,” Hansen said.
Murkowski, commenting on proposed MMS OCS Beaufort Sea oil and gas lease sale 186 in an April letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, said that while the state supports “developing the Alaska OCS in the Beaufort Sea, that development must minimize its impacts to the whaling activities that are so important to the North Slope residents.” He said North Slope Borough Mayor George Ahmaogak has expressed concerns about the proposed lease sale.
The federal decision on deferrals for OCS sale 186 will be part of the sale announcement to be issued in August. Defer only “truly necessary” areas The governor said, however, that the state encouraged MMS to defer only Beaufort Sea “areas that are truly necessary for bowhead whale feeding and hunting.”
And the governor said Alaska “will be reevaluating our own deferrals in these areas in preparation for the state's 2004 Beaufort Sea sale.” In a May letter to Norton the governor said he believes “areas around Barrow and Kaktovik that are important for whale hunting should be deferred.” But Murkowski said he did not think it was necessary to defer the entire Beaufort Sea OCS area between Kaktovik and the Canadian border, and said “the preponderance of scientific opinion is that the eastern area is not critical to whale nutrition. … (but) is more typical of other areas along the North Slope where whales feed during their migrations east and west.”
The governor also told Norton that he understands the MMS desires “to confirm a particular boundary line between the United States and Canada in the Beaufort Sea,” and while a lease sale would not be “determinate,” it would “provide evidence of the U.S. claim,” which would be beneficial to Alaska. The dispute between the United States and Canada is over how the offshore boundary line is drawn. Two deferral areas The two state Beaufort Sea lease deferrals stretch from Point Barrow to Tangent Point in the west (tracts 555, 557-573) and from Barter Island to the Canadian border in the east (tracts 1-39). The division said the western deferral was in response to concerns voiced by local residents who utilize the area for subsistence gathering activities and the eastern deferral was in response to local concerns related to the harvest of bowhead whales.
The division said it decided to defer the tracts for the first areawide sale in 2000, even though it believed “existing mitigation measures provide the necessary protection for subsistence activities.” The division said it also believed it was “unlikely that these tracts would be immediately subject to development,” although the prospect for developing the tracts might increase during the 10-year period covered by the best interest finding.
The division also said in 2000 that it would annually review “available information for these lease tracts to determine whether to offer them in the future.”
The division is now considering whether to include the tracts in the October 2004 areawide sale, and is seeking public and agency comment on the following questions: Should the deferrals remain intact? Can either deferral be reduced and still provide the intended protections? Should both deferrals be eliminated and all tracts offered in the 2004 lease sale? Are existing mitigation measures sufficient to protect subsistence gathering activities and bowhead whale harvesting?
The division will take comments through Dec. 31.
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