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Statoil plans Chukchi drilling in 2014 Company anticipates using jack-up rig to drill at five sites over multiple drilling seasons; has been meeting with local communities Alan Bailey Petroleum News
Statoil is moving ahead with plans to drill its first Chukchi Sea exploration well in 2014, Lars Sunde, head of Statoil’s Alaska operations, told the National Marine Fisheries Service’s annual Arctic Open Water Meeting on March 7.
“We are currently firming up our plans for drilling our first exploration well,” Sunde said.
The company carried out a 3-D seismic program in 2010 in its leases, about 100 miles northwest of the Chukchi Sea coastal village of Wainwright, and has identified five potential drilling sites, Sunde said. In 2011 the company carried out shallow hazard and geotechnical surveys in preparation for developing drilling plans. Statoil expects to use a jack-up rig to drill multiple wells over a period of several years but has not yet decided on exactly which wells to drill, Sunde said.
However, the company is in the process of finding a suitable jack-up rig.
“We hope that we will have a rig nominated by the middle of this year,” Sunde said.
Planning and permitting Statoil has contracted with appropriate consultancy companies and has begun work on drilling planning and preparing an oil spill response plan. The company expects to be engaged on planning and permitting work both this year and in 2013.
Sunde said that Statoil sees major benefits in cooperating with other oil companies in Chukchi Sea exploration, to optimize the use of equipment, to optimize processes and to minimize the environmental footprint of offshore activities.
“We are committed to finding solutions where we can cooperate with other companies and we will be working very, very hard to make that happen,” Sunde said.
And, in addition to fully meeting all U.S. federal and state regulations for offshore exploration, Statoil will meet its own worldwide operational standards, derived from the company’s experience operating on the Norwegian continental shelf, he said. Sunde did, however, reflect on a Statoil planning assumption that in Alaska it would likely take 32 months to permit a drilling operation, compared with about 14 months in the Gulf of Mexico and eight months in the Norwegian Barents Sea.
Stakeholder engagement Sunde particularly emphasized the importance that his company places on communicating with North Slope communities and others who may be impacted by Statoil’s planned operations.
“A very important part of our activities is to engage the stakeholders,” Sunde said. “We have done that since we started operating here in Alaska in 2008 … and we intend to continue that. … We are dedicated to work with the communities of the North Slope and all the stakeholders that anticipate to be affected by the work that we will be doing.”
Sunde recounted a visit to the Chukchi Sea coastal village of Point Hope in November, when he became marooned in the village during the massive storm that struck northwestern Alaska at that time. When moved to the village school for a couple of days, following the failure of the village power supply, he met many people from the village and felt very welcome.
“We never heard a word of complaint, even though we represented something that not all the people in Point Hope approve of,” Sunde said, presumably referencing opposition to Chukchi Sea oil exploration from groups such as the Point Hope tribal government.
Unique culture Sunde said that he was particularly impressed by the villagers’ sense of the importance of belonging to a unique culture.
“We have a lot to learn from the Inupiat culture,” Sunde said. “The culture is about sharing and we really experienced that during those days in Point Hope.”
George Edwardson, an attendee at the Open Water Meeting and president of the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, expressed to Sunde a common refrain from the North Slope communities: concerns about the possible industrial contamination of the marine animals that the communities depend on as a food source.
“What you are doing is very scary for us as a people,” Edwardson said.
Edwardson invited Sunde to attend a meeting of the regional tribal government of eight North Slope villages and Sunde replied that he would accept that invitation.
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