Scoping meetings set for Nanushuk EIS

KAY CASHMAN

Petroleum News

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers posted a public notice Feb. 24, saying it was opening scoping for the Nanushuk project, which is within the Armstrong-operated Pikka unit on Alaska’s North Slope.

The project, which involves three gravel drilling pads, up to 76 wells, pipelines, roads and facilities, sits between the Kuparuk and Oooguruk units and the Colville River unit. It is approximately 0.5 miles east of the East Channel of the Colville River, 52 miles west of Deadhorse, and 7.5 miles northeast of the community of Nuiqsut. (See full project description in a page 1 story in the Feb. 21 edition of Petroleum News.)

A week ago the Corps determined it would do an environmental impact statement for the proposed development, which at its peak is expected to produce 120,000 barrels of oil per day.

The project, slated to tap the Jurassic Alpine sandstone the Cretaceous Nanushuk formation, was initially operated by Repsol E&P USA during the exploration and appraisal stage. The Spanish major is now a minority partner in Pikka. Operatorship is being transferred to Armstrong, but the two companies are still working very closely together, Armstrong’s top executive and founder, Bill Armstrong, told Petroleum News in mid-February.

The Corps is looking for full public participation to “promote open communication on the issues to be addressed in preparation of the EIS,” its notice said.

In initiating the National Environmental Policy Act review process, the agency has determined that an EIS level analysis will be required for the proposed project. NEPA requires agencies to prepare an EIS “when an action may significantly affect the quality of the physical and human environment,” the agency said on the website it has established for the project.

History of development in area

In a Feb. 14 email to Petroleum News about Armstrong and Repsol’s Nanushuk and Alpine discoveries in Pikka, then-Commissioner of DNR Mark Myers said, “the proven contingent oil reserve number makes the discovery the largest since the Alpine field, the probable contingent reserve number the largest since the Kuparuk field, and the possible contingent number makes the discovery the largest since Prudhoe.”

The Corps is the lead federal agency for the project’s EIS. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska Department of Natural Resources, North Star Borough and Native Village of Nuiqsut have been invited to participate as cooperating agencies.

Scoping meetings are designed to inform interested parties, receive public input on the development of proposed alternatives to be reviewed in the EIS, and to identify significant issues that should be analyzed.

The EIS will analyze the potential social, economic, physical, and biological impacts to the affected areas. Numerous issues will be analyzed, the Corps said, including but not limited to the construction and operation of the facilities and their effect upon the community of Nuiqsut; subsistence; cultural resources; air quality; socioeconomics; alternatives; secondary and cumulative impacts; threatened and endangered species including critical habitat; hydrology and wetlands; and fish and wildlife.

Land and resource ownership

Kuukpik Corp. owns the surface estate of lands at the drill sites, lands traversed by the infield roads and infield pipelines, and portions of the access road and Nanushuk Pipeline.

The state of Alaska, through DNR, manages the majority of surface lands crossed by the Nanushuk Pipeline and access road.

The subsurface mineral resources are shared by the state of Alaska and Arctic Slope Regional Corp.

Comments should be submitted to the following address below by May 1, but may be submitted at any time prior to publication of the Draft EIS.

Janet Post

Regulatory Project Manager

US Army Corps of Engineers,

Alaska District

CEPOA-Road

PO Box 6898

JBER, Alaska 99506-0898

[email protected]