BLM extends comments for NPR-A rules on unitization

Petroleum News Alaska Staff

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management said June 26 that it is extending for 45 days the public comment period on its proposed rule on unitization and other matters relating to oil and gas activities in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The public comment period, originally scheduled to close June 26, has been extended to Aug. 10.

The proposed rule, published in the April 26 Federal Register, would add to the BLM’s existing NPR-A regulations certain provisions dealing with unitization, suspensions and subsurface-storage agreements.

BLM said the proposal would implement recent changes in a law that governs oil and gas activities in the NPR-A, allowing companies to unitize their oil and gas leases, allowing suspensions in the term of leases by stopping the clock under circumstances beyond the control of the operator and allowing subsurface storage agreements whereby operators, for a fee, could store oil or gas on BLM-managed lands in existing geological structures rather than in oil or gas tanks.