MMS issues final EIS for Beaufort Sea planning area

Agency’s preferred alternative is leasing over entire 9.8 million acre planning area, from Barrow to the Canadian border

Kristen Nelson

PNA Editor-in-Chief

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service has issued a final environmental impact statement for the Beaufort Sea planning area, covering proposed oil and gas lease sales 186, 195 and 202.

The agency’s preferred alternative offers 1,877 whole or partial blocks covering 9,770,000 acres. MMS said the area, minus leased blocks, would be offered in each of the three sales. That is Alternative I.

Alternative II is no lease sales.

Alternative III is a Barrow subsistence whaling deferral, which MMS said was developed “in response to scoping comments received in Barrow.” Alternative III would offer 1,851 whole or partial blocks (some 9.6 million acres), removing 26 whole or partial blocks in areas in which whales have been taken in the west near Barrow, some 1 percent of “commercial resources opportunity.” MMS said the majority of bowhead hunting is in the Chukchi Sea, in an area already removed from leasing in the final 2002-2007 proposed five-year program.

Alternative IV would defer the Nuiqsut subsistence whaling area, 30 whole or partial blocks, some 5 percent of the opportunity to discover and develop and economic field, and offer 1,847 whole or partial blocks, some 9.6 million acres.

Alternative V would remove the Kaktovik subsistence whaling area, some 28 whole or partial blocks, reducing the opportunity to discover and develop and economic field by some 3 percent, and would offer 1,849 whole or partial blocks, some 9.6 million acres.

Alternative VI, the eastern deferral, would remove the area east of Kaktovik, a reduction of 3 percent of opportunity, and offer 1,817 whole or partial blocks, some 9.5 million acres. This deferral adjoins an area that the state of Alaska has deferred in recent sales.

Alternative I includes standard stipulations and information to lessees clauses, plus three optional mitigating measures: Stipulation 7 (pre-booming requirements for fuel transfers); Stipulation 8 (lighting of structures to minimize effects to spectacled and Steller’s eiders); and ITL 17 (information to lessees on archaeological and geological hazards reports).

Stipulation 7 requires pre-booming of fuel barges for fuel transfers (excluding gasoline) of 100 barrels or more occurring three weeks prior to or during the bowhead whale migration.

Stipulation 8 requires offshore structures associated with offshore drilling to be lighted or marked in a manner that does not attract migrating spectacled or Steller’s eiders and minimizes the likelihood the birds will collide with the structures. “The MMS and the Fish and Wildlife Service will cooperatively develop lighting requirements and identify where, when, and on what type of structures the requirements should be applied.” MMS said it would develop specific lighting requirements by April 1, 2004, and issue requirements. Sale 186 is scheduled for Sept. 24, 2003; sale 195 for 2005; and sale 202 for 2007. Comments relating to the FEIS will be accepted through March 14.

MMS said it based its analysis on zones determined by water depth and proximity to existing North Slope infrastructure. The near-shallow zone is in the central Beaufort Sea offshore Prudhoe Bay between the Canning River and the Colville River in water depths of less than 30 meet.

The midrange-medium zone extends from Barter Island in the east to Cape Halkett in the west in water depths of 30 to 100 feet. The far-deepwater zone extends from the Canadian border to Barrow in water depths which may exceed 600 feet, “although we expect most development would take place in water depths less than 125 feet and within 25 miles from shore,” the agency said.

In the shallow zone, exploration is expected to be from artificial ice islands grounded on the seabed in shallow water supported by ice roads; bottom-founded platforms could be used in water depths of 10-20 meters. Drillships would be used in water deeper than 20 meters.

“Because mobile ice conditions in deeper water makes ice roads unfeasible, deeper water … operations would take place during the summer open-water season and would be supported by icebreakers and supply boats,” the agency said.

In the near-shallow zone development would probably be from artificial gravel islands or mobile concrete structures set on the seafloor. In the midrange-medium zone, development could resemble near zone in shallow water, although fields would have to be larger to be economic and there would be more emphasis on extended reach drilling. In the far-deepwater zone, large accumulations would be required for project economics and probably multiple platforms.