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Murkowski asks about legacy well costs Questions Interior Secretary Jewell on impact of ‘critical mistakes’ by BLM, contractors in cleaning up abandoned NPR-A wells KRISTEN NELSON Petroleum News
While the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has been questioning the U.S. Bureau of Land Management about the actions of its contractors in cleaning up legacy wells in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, Alaska’s senior senator, Lisa Murkowski, is querying Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell about how the costs of redoing work incorrectly done will impact amounts available for the overall cleanup.
In a May 25 letter Murkowski said she has pushed Interior “for years ... to properly remediate all 136 wells and core tests drilled in NPR-A by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Geological Survey between 1944 and 1982.” In 2013, Murkowski said, she secured $50 million to accelerate cleanup of the legacy wells, “with the expectation those funds would be used quickly and wisely by the Department to resolve this multi-decade catastrophe.”
March and April letters from AOGCC to BLM identified violations by BLM and its contractor SolstenXP in plug and abandonment operations at Simpson Core Test 26.
An April response from BLM referred to the agency’s contractor as Marsh Creek LLC and SolstenXP as Marsh Creek’s subcontractor and said it had informed the contractor of omissions in procedures. The contractor implemented a corrective action plan, BLM said.
Lack of industry standards Murkowski said in her letter that she had “received reports that BLM has not been requiring its contractors to follow industry standards, state and federal regulations, or approved procedures during the remediation process.”
At Simpson Core Test 26, Murkowski said, a well “known to be cable of flowing oil,” BLM allowed its contractor to attempt cleanup without a blowout preventer, a violation of Alaska state law and regulations of AOGCC, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. “It ignores industry standards and, most consequentially, risks human lives and additional damage to the environment.”
She said she had been informed that the contractor lost control of the well and oil flowed onto the tundra.
Another incident, she said, occurred at Iko Bay Well No. 1, currently flowing methane. No ground contamination occurred there, she said, but “the initial lack of attention to detail during capping of the well seems to indicate that BLM needs to review the terms of its performance-based contracts, and improve its level of oversight and the knowledge and experience of its oversight personnel, to guarantee that all state and federal regulations are properly followed in the future.”
The cost issue Murkowski noted that BLM awarded $37.4 million to complete remediation of 18 legacy wells, and given the incidents, she asked if all of those wells are “still on track to be remediated on the same timeline, using the funds that have already been awarded by the agency?”
She asked if BLM will ask the contractor at the Simpson Core Test well “to cover the full cost of remobilizing to properly remediate the well” or whether the department will absorb those costs, “potentially at the expense of other work that could decommission other abandoned wells?”
She also asked what the agency has done to improve its contracts and what its timeline is for remediation of all abandoned wells in NPR-A.
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