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BLM prepares for NPR-A activity, playing catch up with industry Advisory panel to review needed development research, rules for exploration in northwest area Patricia Jones PNA Contributing Writer
Federal land managers are overseeing existing exploration work, preparing for future full field development and planning for lease sales in a new area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
It’s a full slate of work for the Bureau of Land Management, an agency that needs to “catch up” to industry with its baseline environmental work in activity areas of the 23 million acre petroleum reserve, located west of the Colville River on the Arctic North Slope.
Updated U.S. Geological Survey estimates of recoverable oil in NPR-A range from 5.9 to 13.2 billion barrels of oil, with an estimated mean of 9.3 billion barrels of oil. Most of the oil is believed to be in the northern third of NPR-A, occurring in moderately sized accumulations, according to the USGS report released in late May.
Initial lease sales in NPR-A focused on the northeast portion of the reserve. Now, BLM is starting the process for possible lease sales in the northwest portion of NPR-A, with a targeted 2004 timeline for the first potential lease sale.
The agency is still drafting an environmental impact statement that would guide BLM decision makers about whether to offer those additional lands for lease, and if so, how to conduct the land management process.
Yet the agency’s first lease sales in NPA-A, held in 1999, outpaced BLM’s expectations and planning work, said Bob Schneider, Northern Field Office manager.
“We leased 4 million acres in our lease sale in 1999 — 133 tracks for a total of $104 million,” he said. “That far exceeded our expectations, by tenfold.”
Following that lease sale, exploration crews hit the ground that winter, drilling the first of 13 new exploration wells that have been completed in NPR-A in the last three years.
“We didn’t expect exploration to take place that first winter season,” he said. Planning for development proposal Success in subsequent exploration programs by Phillips Alaska Inc. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which partnered on a number of leases in NPR-A, have caused BLM managers to anticipate the next step — field development.
“We have a potential development scenario,” Schneider told the agency’s Research and Monitoring Team during its first official meeting in Fairbanks on May 29.
The comment came as Schneider suggested that plans for baseline environmental studies should, for the most part, be focused on a small area of the northeast part of NPR-A, where existing exploration work has yielded success.
The area lies roughly 20 to 40 miles west of Alpine, where Phillips and Anadarko have punched several exploration wells. The companies announced flow results from two wells that hit oil and gas in 2001. Three other wells also hit oil or gas and condensates.
Results from the four wells drilled this year remain secret, yet BLM managers anticipate receiving a full field development proposal from Phillips later this year, probably in October, Schneider said.
“They haven’t narrowed down the piece of ground it’s going to be on, so we’re trying to focus on where it will probably be,” Schneider said. “We need to be ready if it happens.”
Therefore, BLM has already started or will initiate this summer five different environmental studies that focus on the area of proposed oil and gas development, he told the agency’s research advisory group. Group focuses on potential development Although an interim group of agency, industry, academia and environmental stakeholder representatives have been meeting for about two years, the first official gathering of the NPR-A Research and Monitoring Team was held in Fairbanks May 29.
Charged with advising BLM how to best monitor industry activity and to plan for environmental research needs in NPR-A, team members learned last week about studies already initiated in the potential development area.
BLM contract researchers have started or will conduct this summer the following: a water resource assessment; a baseline contaminant study; an assessment of impacts to vegetation from seismic trails, ice roads and ice pads; caribou displacement from seismic and other winter exploration activities and subsistence harvests by residents of Nuiqsut, Barrow and Atqasuk.
“These are all focused in the area of potential development,” Schneider told the RMT, referring the group to a map highlighting existing exploration locations centered within the northeastern portion of NPR-A.
These five current studies will cost between $350,000 to $400,000, Schneider said.
In addition, BLM has approximately $415,000 for research projects approved for the fiscal year 2002, he said.
That period ends in September, and due to the length of the federal Requests for Proposals process required for such research projects, the money will probably not be spent, an issue discussed by team members during the meeting. Schneider told the team members that he would protect the funding, so it could be used for future research projects endorsed by the advisory team. Northwest NPR-A planning to begin In addition to planning for research and monitoring of field development and ongoing exploration work in the northeastern part of NPR-A, BLM has initiated the possible leasing program for the northwestern part of the reserve.
Agency employees have begun a draft environmental impact statement tentatively expected to be released for the public comment and input in November. A final EIS for the northwest NPR-A area could be completed by the fall of 2003. A possible lease sale would follow, at the earliest in the spring of 2004, according to the BLM timeline.
“We don’t know if we will lease for oil and gas exploration, but if we do, it will be early 2004,” Schneider said. “We would anticipate lease sales every two years.”
Unlike the initial EIS process in the northeastern portion of NPR-A, all of the federal lands contained in the northwest portion are to be initially considered.
“There’s no place in the northwestern part of NPR-A that’s been taken off the table before we have done the analysis,” Schneider said. “In the process, it may be decided not to lease a part of an area … all the options are open at this point in time.” Northwest lease stipulations to be negotiated In preparing for oil exploration activity in the northeastern portion of NPR-A, BLM developed 79 lease stipulations. Covering eight general areas of land use and related impacts, the detailed stipulations are outlined in the agency’s Integrated Activity Plan/Environmental Impact Statement issued in October 1998.
Whether those same 79 lease stipulations will be used in the EIS developed for the northwestern region remains to be seen, Schneider said.
RMT members should consider and advise BLM about whether the stipulations are too restrictive, don’t require enough oversight of industry or whether they are effective for the northwest region, he added.
A few of the 79 stipulations are site-specific, Schneider said, making their restrictions moot in a different area.
In an interview with PNA, Schneider said using the 79 stipulations as a base for regulation was one of three alternatives BLM is considering in their management plan for activity in NPR-A.
The agency could also consider a “performance-based” procedure, where the agency outlines its land use goals and desires, leaving the details to be developed and proposed by industry.
BLM could also back off on its restrictions, allowing access under existing regulations that govern resource developers nationwide, combined with developed North Slope operating practices.
“We’re looking at different scenarios and different options to see what would work,” he said. “We may end up with a combination of these alternatives.” Industry involved with advisory team As a stakeholder advisory group, the RMT involves membership from the oil and gas industry. The primary candidate representing industry is Joe Hegna, Phillips Alaska’s director of regulatory affairs.
Hegna declined to comment on the 79 stipulations contained in the northeast NPR-A land plan, referring questions to company spokeswoman Dawn Patience, who also declined to comment on Phillips’ exploration work in NPR-A and regulations overseeing that activity.
Hegna’s alternate on the advisory panel is Robert Elder, staff environmental advisor for Anadarko Petroleum, which just completed the company’s first season as a solo exploration operator on the North Slope.
“We just finished our first year working under the stipulations,” Elder said. “Most are all workable, some are cumbersome and some might need to be better defined. Some duplicate the state and federal regulations that we comply with.”
Anadarko drilled one well in NPR-A, called Altamura, during the spring 2002 exploration season, and had hoped to drill a second, Elder said. The short exploration season prohibited the additional work, he said.
Exploration crews are allowed on the remote land only when the tundra is frozen to specific depths below the ground surface, restrictions mandated by both federal and state land managers.
While such regulations aren’t enough to “dampen exploration efforts, there are issues that make things risky,” Elder said. “Access is important as we go further west.”
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