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State of Alaska streamlines ice road approval Agency alters procedures for North Slope ice road construction; federal, private lands now included for exploration access review Patricia Jones Petroleum News Contributing Writer
A minor change in procedures governing ice road construction for Alaska North Slope exploration projects will streamline and expedite the approval process for companies needing access to federal or private lands.
In a letter issued June 19, state project analyst Glenn Gray announced completion of a state review of minor changes that govern ice road construction to ensure consistency with the Alaska Coastal Management Program.
The main focus of the changes is to add federal and private lands to provisions that govern temporary ice road construction on state lands, he told Petroleum News July 8.
“Before, it was just state land,” he said. “This is a streamlining (of review) for ice road construction for oil and gas exploration.” Benefits NPR-A, Colville exploration Companies that will benefit from the changes include those working in the Colville River area on privately owned land and in the federally controlled National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
In past years, Gray said, such winter access work has been held up — sometimes for weeks at a time — due to the exclusion of federal and private land in ice road construction provisions under the Alaska Coastal Management Program.
Those delays in ice road construction occurred because the entire exploration project, including building the ice-based temporary roads, had to receive regulatory approval — also called General Concurrence — on those federal and private lands, Gray said.
Now, ice road construction is viewed as a separate, distinct phase of exploratory drilling on all lands on the North Slope and is considered initial work that can be conducted while final permitting for actual exploration drilling is still pending.
That expedited approval comes only if operators submit a plan for ice road construction to state permitting agencies that complies with regulations outlined in detail in the General Consistency Determination 34 and regulators determine that no individual review is required.
Permits are still required for access and water use from the different agencies, Gray said. Other changes Gray’s letter and attached ACMP final consistency determination also notified participants of three other minor changes in the regulations.
First, the name of the General Concurrence 34 rule, pertaining to ice road construction for exploration work, was changed to General Consistency Determination 34.
Second, the altered rules allow for temporary storage of materials on ice. That would include “any kind of material that would be brought to a drilling location or a staging area — pipe, equipment, construction material,” Gray said.
Before this change, the general concurrence did not allow materials to be stockpiled on surface ice of lakes, ponds, rivers or on sea ice. GCD 34 lists three exceptions that allow such temporary storage. Those include the use of light plants and water pumps (including refueling), stockpiling materials on surface ice of lakes and ponds that do not contain fish, and storing materials on fish-bearing waters with consent from the Department of Natural Resources or the applicable land manager.
The third change allows for addition of the Bureau of Land Management right of way authorization to the list of permits involved with the General Consistency Determination. Purpose of GCD 34 Establishing the general rules of GDC 34 for ice road construction actually speeds up the approval process for construction of the temporary access routes, Gray explained.
Without the General Consistency Determination to operate under, companies planning exploration would be required to submit their ice road construction plans for a more time-consuming individual review.
“They would have to come in much earlier … months earlier,” Gray said.
Typically, companies are requested by the Department of Natural Resources to begin submitting their winter exploration work plans and permits in August and early September. “Many companies come in later than this,” he said. “Without this (GCD 34) a problem with another aspect of the project wold hold up construction of ice roads.”
The general rules for ice road construction allow that work to begin as soon as the department allows access on the frozen tundra. Companies can begin building their access roads to remote locations, while finalizing permits for the exploration drilling.
“In a year with a standard freeze, they can get through all their permitting by the time ice road construction is complete,” Gray said.
An earlier freeze-up on the North Slope, somewhat unusual in recent years, could allow for that portion of the work to be completed in advance of final permitting work, he added.
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