Hilcorp permitting Liberty survey

Hilcorp Alaska LLC has applied for an incidental harassment authorization for shallow geohazard surveys scheduled this summer around the Liberty field in the Beaufort Sea.

The authorization would allow the Texas-based independent to accidentally disturb a small percentage of various marine mammal species in the region during a survey of state lands, state waters and federal waters in Foggy Island Bay. The six species in the application are Beluga, bowhead and gray whales and bearded, ringed and spotted seals.

The surveying would help the company decide how to develop the Liberty field, an oil field beneath federally managed waters jointly owned with BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.

The 45-day survey would occur between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2015. Accounting for expected down time, Hilcorp expects the active parts of the survey to last for 34 days.

Hilcorp applied for the authorization from the National Marine Fisheries Service in early December 2014 and revised and modified the application twice during January.

Hilcorp acquired a 50 percent working interest in Liberty from BP in November 2014 and subsequently become operator of the offshore field. By the end of the year, Hilcorp had filed a proposed development plan with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The plan proposed an artificial gravel island in Foggy Island Bay to support a drilling program to bring the field into production within three years of regulatory approval.

Although the plan was the first progress at Liberty since BP suspended its activities in 2012, Hilcorp made clear it had yet to formally sanction a development and was merely advancing the regulatory process. That remains the current status of the project.

- Eric Lidji