Could OCS natural gas fuel western coastal Alaska?

Kristen Nelson

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service held only one Alaska outer continental shelf oil and gas lease sale during its current five-year sale schedule. The agency is now working on a new schedule.

John Goll, MMS Alaska regional director, told the Alaska Support Industry Alliance Feb. 23 that the agency is required by Congress to develop an oil and gas leasing program every five years covering the size, timing and location of sales. Industry comments received for the 2002-2007 Alaska leasing program show serious interest only in the Beaufort Sea and Cook Inlet, he said.

But what, Goll asked, if some of that offshore resource — especially gas — could be used to fuel western coastal Alaska, which has no local fuel source?

Coastal communities would have to be shown that drilling and development can be done safety, and projects would obviously have to be economic, Goll said.

But Western Alaska is searching onshore for energy sources — shallow gas or coalbed methane, he said. What if areas like the Hope Basin and the Norton Basin — or even Bristol Bay, the only area of Alaska currently under a Congressional leasing moratorium — produced natural gas that could be used onshore?

Goll said natural gas production from the outer continental shelf off Alaska’s western coast would provide benefits, when typically coastal areas adjacent to oil and gas development see only risk.