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BLM starts GMT-2 project review
The federal government is beginning its environmental review of the second oil development proposed for federal lands within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a Notice of Intent on July 25 to conduct the review for the Greater Mooses Tooth-2, or GMT-2, project. A 30-day “scoping” process for a Draft Environmental Impact Statement has been initiated and the entire EIS procedure typically requires 18 months to complete, BLM spokeswoman KJ Mushovic said.
Almost a year ago, in August 2015, ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. applied for permission to build a drill site, access road, pipelines and other facilities to support oil and natural gas development within the federal Greater Mooses Tooth unit. If sanctioned, the proposed GMT-2 development would be the second in the NPR-A, after the GMT-1 project.
The BLM completed a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the GMT-1 project in October 2014 and approved the project in February 2015. The company later sanctioned the $900 million project and expects production by 2018.
14-acre production pad GMT-2 would be built on a 14-acre production pad capable of supporting 48 wells and would be connected by road and pipeline to ConocoPhillips’ GMT-1, another planned production site, about 8 miles to the northeast. GMT-1 is now under construction by ConocoPhillips and is expected to be in production in 2018 with peak output estimated at 30,000 barrels per day.
Oil from both sites would be transported to the producing Alpine field, also operated by ConocoPhillips, which is about 11 miles to the east in the Colville River delta, and on state-owned lands.
ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman said her company hopes to have “first oil “from GMT-2 in the fourth quarter of 2020. So far there are no estimates of potential production.
The Greater Mooses Tooth projects are the second and third in a series of medium-sized projects extending southwest into NPR-A from the producing Alpine field, which is on state lands in the Colville River delta just east of the NPR-A boundary.
The first NPR-A project is CD-5, just over the border and a few miles west of the Alpine field. CD-5 is now producing at about 16,000 bpd.
CD-5 cost about $1.1 billion to build; GMT-1 is budgeted at $900 million and GMT-2 at $1 billion, ConocoPhillips has said.
- ERIC LIDJI & TIM BRADNER
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