Seaview pipeline ROW approved by state

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Mining, Land and Water Southcentral Regional Office has approved a private non-exclusive easement requested by Hilcorp Alaska for a proposed 10-inch diameter buried gas gathering pipeline near Anchor Point.

The easement authorizes “construction, survey, operation and maintenance” of the line from the Seaview Pad to existing Enstar gas transmission infrastructure.

DNR’s Division of Oil and Gas approved a lease plan of operations for Seaview June 15. The existing Seaview Pad is on private land at an operating mine site off the Old Sterling Highway 1.5 miles south of Anchor Point on the Lower Kenai Peninsula.

Hilcorp drilled stratigraphic tests in the area in 2017 and applied to the state in the summer of 2018 for an exploration plan which included construction of the Seaview pad and two exploration wells.

The Seaview Pad was constructed in 2018 at an existing gravel mine on private surface lands. Exploration phase of the project included drilling of the Seaview 8 and 9 wells. The discovery well, Seaview 8, was completed in December 2018 to a vertical depth of 10,148 feet and tested for gas in May 2019.

Hilcorp plans to bring the Seaview 8 online as a gas production well late this year, with drilling of the Seaview 9 planned for late this year.

In its private non-exclusive easement for the Seaview Pipeline, the division said the easement is some 865 feet long by 30 feet wide, an estimated 0.59 acres, with two temporary staging areas, one approximately 150 feet by 150 feet and the other some 1,189 feet long by 45 feet wide, a combined land area of some 1.73 acres.

The division said Hilcorp plans to bore under the north and south forks of the Anchor River to complete installation of the pipeline. Terms of the temporary staging areas are temporary easements lasting 3 years; for the pipeline, the term of the easement is 25 years.

- KRISTEN NELSON