BLM issues draft plan, environmental impact statement for northwest NPR-A

Four alternatives range from no oil and gas leasing to oil and gas leasing over the entire 8.8 million acres; agency does not have a preferred alternative

Kristen Nelson

PNA Editor-in-Chief

The Bureau of Land Management has issued a draft Northwest National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska integrated activity plan and environmental impact statement. BLM said it analyzed four possible management alternatives for the 8.8 million acres of public lands in the northwest portion of NPR-A.

BLM Alaska State Director Henri Bisson said in a statement that the agency addressed three major issues: what lands should BLM offer for oil and gas leasing? What measures should be developed to protect surface resources? And what non-oil and gas land allocations should be considered for this portion of the NPR-A?

Bisson said BLM does not have a preferred alternative. Public comments will be accepted through March 18.

Public meetings will be held Feb. 12 in Fairbanks and Feb. 13 in Anchorage. Meetings will also be held in North Slope communities.

The final plan and EIS are scheduled to be published in October, and BLM plans to have a record of decision signed Nov. 30.

Range of alternatives

In alternative A, all BLM-administered lands in the northwest NPR-A planning area would be available for oil and gas leasing. No special areas, wilderness study areas or wild and scenic rivers would be proposed. The entire planning area would be open to recreational off-highway vehicle use.

Alternative B would make 96 percent of BLM-administered lands (100 percent of the area of high oil and gas potential) available for oil and gas leasing. The proposed Kasegaluk Lagoon special area (on the Chukchi Sea coast east of Icy Cape) would not be available for leasing and no permanent oil and gas facilities would be allowed either in the special area or — excepting two right of way sites to be designated at Peard Bay (south of Point Franklin on the Chukchi Sea coast) and near Wainwright (between Point Belcher and Kasegaluk Lagoon on the Chukchi Sea coast) — in and along the shores of the coastal bays and lagoons. Stipulations and required operating procedures would further restrict the placement of permanent oil and gas facilities around lakes, rivers and important habitat and offshore exploratory drilling would only be allowed in winter in the coastal bays and lagoons from bottom-fast ice pads, natural islands and constructed gravel islands.

Alternative C would make 47 percent of BLM-administered lands in the planning area available for oil and gas leasing (less than 2 percent of area considered high potential for oil and gas) and would emphasize protection of specific surface resources through barring lease sales, excluding permanent oil and gas facilities, or both, in potentially sensitive areas.

Areas withheld from leasing in alternative C would include three proposed wilderness study areas (Kasegaluk Lagoon, and in the southeast two areas, foothills and mountains), one proposed wild river and 21 proposed scenic river corridors. Federal subsurface oil and gas below surface lands owned or selected by Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act village corporations for Atqasuk, Barrow and Wainwright would not be available for leasing.

Stipulations approach different

The stipulations for the Northeast planning area “were developed as far back as 1997 when the draft environmental impact statement was written,” Bovy said. Those stipulations are quite specific.

“We've drilled a few things since those stipulations were developed,” he said, and “we've learned over the last three years of drilling.”

The goal remains the same, he said: protection of surface resources. But this time around the agency decided to designate the “desired end product or outcome and allow for some creative thinking to attain that result.

“So the theory for the new approach is to be a little more flexible and allow for development of more site-specific options to achieve the same result,” he said.

BLM will still protect the surface resources, Bovy said, but that will be done “in a more flexible or cooperative manner. Rather than picking from a pre-determined list of one-size fits all stipulations.”

Alpine sandstone

Alpine, discovered by ARCO and partners in the winter of 1994-95, “is particularly significant in that the Alpine discovery has revealed a new geologic play in previously unknown sands of the Jurassic Kingak Formation. The Alpine play extends westward into the NPR-A and it has been the principal target for exploration in leases acquired in the Northeast NPR-A planning area,” the agency said.

BLM said the Jurassic reservoirs in this new exploration play likely “extend over the northern third of the Northwest and Northeast NPR-A planning area.”

Thirteen exploration wells (including one sidetrack) have been drilled on acreage acquired in the 1999 northeast area lease sale and six (including the sidetrack) “encountered oil or gas and condensate.” The Spark 1A tested 1,550 barrels of oil and 26.5 million cubic feet of gas per day. The Rendezvous A tested 360 barrels of oil and 6.6 million cubic feet of gas per day.

These wells, BLM said, are some 15 to 25 miles southwest of the Alpine field, and “targeted the Alpine field reservoir formation, which occurs within the 'Beaufortian' playgroup.”

New technology is also a factor. The reservoirs are only “modestly thick” but with new technology economic recovery is expected of 500 million barrels of the estimated 800 million to 1 billion barrels in place at Alpine. And Alpine facilities — including a pipeline under the Colville River — have brought infrastructure to the edge of NPR-A.

There were lease sales in the NPR-A in the 1980s, and one well was drilled (Brontosaurus, ARCO), but it was abandoned as a dry hole in 1985. Leasing in the 1999 lease sale was concentrated in the northeast corner of the northeast NPR-A planning area, west of Alpine.

“It is quite likely that fields similar in size and stratigraphy were overlooked by previous exploration efforts in the NPR-A as they were focused on the Barrow Arch in the north or on the foldbelt structures in the south. If Alpine-sized fields had been discovered, they might have been considered sub-economic as recently as a decade ago,” the agency said.