ISER estimates Liberty’s economic impact

Petroleum News

The University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research has done an analysis of the economic impact of Hilcorp Alaska’s proposed Liberty project, which would develop an estimated 120 million barrels of recoverable oil from a self-contained gravel island.

The draft environmental impact statement for the project, released last July, indicates that as many as 16 wells would produce up to 65,000 barrels per day of oil and 120 million cubic feet of natural gas.

The authors, Mouhcine Guettabi and Robert Loeffler, estimated in a study released late last year that employment would peak in 2020 at some 300 annualized jobs with direct wages at the peak at $40 million. Total employment from 2017 to 2023 would be 1,019 jobs, with total direct wages of about $141 million over that period.

The authors said estimates were based on inputs from Hilcorp.

Total employment, including direct, indirect and induced, is expected to be close to 2,700 for the 2017-23 period, with total wages in 2017 dollars from the construction phase totaling $247 million.

- Petroleum News