Feds OK ConocoPhillips Alaska North Slope project {Alaska NPRA}

Fuel Fix ^ | December 19, 2011 at 5:46 pm | Simone Sebastian

[thackney]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has approved a bridge-and-road project that will give ConocoPhillips access to the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska’s North Slope, the federal agency announced today.

The Clean Water Act permit gives ConocoPhillips the go-ahead for its CD-5 Alpine Satellite Development Project. The oil company has long sought to drill and develop the area and needed the permits to build infrastructure connecting CD-5 to existing pipelines.

The thumbs-up concludes a yearlong federal review and follows approvals earlier this month by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The permit allows Houston-based ConocoPhillips to cross the Colville River, with construction of four bridges, a six-mile access road, a drill pad, two valve pads and pipeline support structures. But the Army Corps says it laid out in its 134-page decision 22 requirements to reduce the project’s environmental impact.

“Today’s decision clears the way for the National Petroleum Reserve’s first oil production,” said U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, in a written statement. “NPR-A has long been cited as an example of the federal government’s commitment to domestic oil production, but in reality the gates to NPR-A have been locked by bureaucracy and regulatory red tape. The Corps’ revised decision finally unlocks those gates.”

[thackney]

Okay!

After a couple weeks of talk with conditional approval from some governmental agencies, the actual permit for the long awaited bridge has actually been issued.

[thackney]

Related article:

Army Corps OKs access to reserve for Conoco Phillips

http://www.adn.com/2011/12/19/2225113/army-corps-oks-access-to-petroleum.html#storylink=cpy

...

Sen Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the permit clears the way for the NPR-A’s first oil production. “NPR-A has long been cited as an example of the federal government’s commitment to domestic oil production, but in reality, the gates to NPR-A have been locked by bureaucracy and regulatory red tape,” she said. “The corps’ revised decision finally unlocks those gates.”

The petroleum reserve on the North Slope was originally created by President Warren Harding in 1923 and covers 23 million acres — an area slightly smaller than the state of Indiana. As of July, the reserve had 310 authorized oil and gas leases totaling more than 3 million acres. A federal lease sale Dec. 7 took high bids of $3 million for 141,739 more acres.

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell hailed the permit announcement as a means to increase state petroleum production. “The potential new production from the NPR-A can lead to more jobs for Alaskans,” he said in prepared remarks

...

Oil pumped from within the reserve would cross the Colville River to infrastructure already in place at Conoco Phillips’ Alpine fields and eventually to the trans-Alaska pipeline. The CD-5 field is on the eastern edge of the petroleum reserve and an extension of Conoco Phillips’ Alpine Field.

(excerpted)

[thackney]

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
CD5 DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
http://www.conocophillipsalaska.com/permits/CD5%20Permit%20apps%202008/Project%20Description%20CD5_Bridge_12-1-08.pdf
(detailed)

Map showning bridge, CD5, current production and future production sites:
http://www.conocophillipsalaska.com/permits/CD5%20Permit%20apps%202008/CD5-CD6-CD7-FIORD%20WEST_1-9-09.pdf

Location of existing Alpine central production facility for tie-in:
http://maps.google.com/?ll=70.341273,-150.938931&spn=0.0231,0.13175&t=h&z=14&vpsrc=6

Alpine is a modern facility, built around 2000. It was expanded to include a few remote drill sites a few miles away.

In addition to being the 3rd largest producing area on the North Slope, it was a "proving ground" for how compact a commercial facility could be built. It was intend as typcial of facilities that could be done in ANWR.

Alpiine is not connected by road to other North Slope production facilities. It is separated from the by the Colville River. Every winter, they build an ice road crossing this river typically rated to carry 100 ton loads.

Below is CD4 during late construction, on of the remote drill sites added to the Alpine unit.