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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
September 2022

Vol. 27, No.37 Week of September 25, 2022

AOGCC changes: Price, Seamount leaving, Wilson new commissioner

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

There are big changes underway at the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, with turnovers in two of the three commissioner seats.

Chair Jeremy Price is leaving the commission for a job with HF Sinclair in Anacortes, Washington, effective Sept. 23, and Dan Seamount, who has been AOGCC geology commissioner since 2000, is retiring, with his place on the commission being taken by Greg Wilson, who started Sept. 19.

Price told Petroleum News in a Sept. 21 email that he is moving to a position as government and public affairs manager with HF Sinclair, which bought Shell’s Anacortes refinery late last year. “They refine Hilcorp’s Alaska North Slope crude,” Price said, calling the new position “an opportunity to promote a favorable business climate where ANS gets refined, a great way to help my home state of Alaska in a different way.”

In a Sept. 12 resignation letter to Gov. Mike Dunleavy Price said that during his three years on the commission, “I focused on updating and streamlining policies, where appropriate, modernizing AOGCC’s authorizing statute, and being responsive to industry concerns while still holding them accountable.”

Price, who was born in Fairbanks, told PN it was a tough decision to leave the state.

Dan Seamount

Seamount is retiring after more than 20 years as geology commissioner and is longest serving commissioner in AOGCC history. There have been 16 public members of the commission over the years and 14 petroleum engineering members, but only six geologist members.

His bio on the AOGCC website notes that he served as commission chair from 2008 to 2012, and as a commissioner worked on many issues including regulation of Alaska’s more than 50 oil and gas fields, North Slope natural gas, Cook Inlet energy supply challenges, hydraulic fracturing, statute and regulations modifications, investigations of minor and major incidents and advances of energy sources such as coalbed methane, geothermal and underground coal gasification.

Appointed to fill the geologist seat in 2000, Seamount was reappointed to full six-year terms in 2005, 2011 and 2017. His current appointment expires next March.

Prior to joining AOGCC, Seamount was senior advising geologist for Unocal in Anchorage and previously worked for Marathon Oil and Chevron U.S.A.

Greg Wilson

Wilson, who was appointed effective Sept. 19 for a term which expires March 1, 2023, will need to be confirmed by the Alaska Legislature.

The governor’s office provided Wilson’s resume.

He retired from ConocoPhillips Alaska in 2021 and has 31 years as a petroleum geologist in Alaska. He earned a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was hired by ARCO Alaska that same year, serving as a senior geologist from 1990-2000. With Phillips Alaska, Wilson was a staff geologist, becoming principal exploration geologist with ConocoPhillips Alaska in 2002, and director, Arctic exploration and services, for the company in 2011. From 2014-21 he was manager of exploration operations and technology for the company.

In 2021 he was recognized by the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, AOGA, with the organization’s Marilyn Crockett Lifetime Achievement Award.

AOGA cited Wilson for spending “his career supporting and leading Alaska exploration teams with ARCO, Phillips, and ConocoPhillips.” The organization noted he was recruited by ARCO for its Anchorage office in 1990 “and has spent decades since then working in Alaska exploration.”

- KRISTEN NELSON






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