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Apache applies for seismic authorization Wants to collect more 3-D seismic data in Alaska’s upper Cook Inlet as part of major seismic survey program Alan Bailey Petroleum News
Apache Alaska Corp. has applied to the National Marine Fisheries Service for an incidental harassment authorization for seismic surveying in Cook Inlet in 2014. The authorization would allow the accidental disturbance of small numbers of marine mammals such as beluga whales during seismic operations. The area where surveying could take place under the terms of the authorization extends out from the coast in the area of Homer and Anchor Point in the southern Kenai Peninsula, and across the entire inlet north from a line extending west from Ninilchik up to an area north of Nikiski.
In 2012 Apache conducted a survey across the more northerly part of the upper Cook Inlet, under the terms of an incidental harassment authorization for that area. Then, in 2013, the company obtained an authorization for surveying to the south of that first area, across a similar area to that envisioned in this year’s authorization application. However, the company did not conduct any surveying in 2013 and, with the authorizations only being valid for a year at a time, the company has presumably had to apply for a new authorization.
Multi-year program Apache is conducting a major multiyear offshore and onshore seismic survey program in the Cook Inlet basin as part of a search for new oil and gas resources in the basin. In addition to the 2012 offshore survey, the company has conducted some land-based surveying on the west side of Cook Inlet. During an August 2013 earnings call Apache CEO Steve Farris said that, while his company remains positive about the Cook Inlet basin, the company was slowing its exploration efforts in the region following disappointing results from the drilling of a well on the west side of the inlet.
Apache has in the past also expressed frustration with the time required to obtain some of the federal permits that it requires to conduct its Alaska survey operations.
The company is conducting its surveys using a state-of-the-art system of wireless, nodal seismic receivers, each of which independently records seismic sound for download into a computer system. Offshore, each node is housed in a small, sealed, disk-shaped container that sits on the seafloor. Air guns towed behind a seismic vessel create the seismic sounds that are reflected off subsurface rock strata, to create an image of the subsurface geology.
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