NPR-A cleanup effort gets $10 million

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said March 26 that provisions in the appropriation bill passed by Congress March 23 include $10 million for the federal Bureau of Land Management to complete cleanup of the next group of legacy NPR-A wells. These wells were drilled by the federal government in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, known as Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 until 1976, between 1944 and 1982. The name change came with a transfer of management from the U.S. Navy to BLM in the Department of the Interior.

Murkowski secured $50 million in the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013 for NPR-A legacy well cleanup, but 26 wells still require remediation.

In a statement the senator’s office said the $10 million is enough to complete remediation of nine of the remaining wells. The Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriation bill was contained in the full government funding measure.

The senator’s office said the bill compels BLM to craft a long-term strategy to complete cleanup of the NPR-A legacy wells.

There are numerous non-oil and gas Alaska projects funded in the bill.

Commissioner Cathy Foerster of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission told the Alaska Senate Resources Committee March 5 that BLM plans to remediate five wells in the Wolf Creek cluster this winter, with work at one of the wells already successfully completed.

She said 26 more wells remain, with an estimated cost of $90-$100 million to complete. The remaining wells, Foerster said, are not in clusters so each will require separate mobilization and demobilization costs. She told the committee there was no money for the remaining work - that was prior to passage of the federal spending bill.

- KRISTEN NELSON