Company plans gravel island to extract Arctic offshore oil

Northstar Island, an artificial island in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, is a site of oil and gas drilling. (U.S. Department of the Interior)

Company plans gravel island to extract Arctic offshore oil

12/13/2015    By DAN JOLING      Fire Engineering

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Arctic offshore drilling by Royal Dutch Shell PLC drew protests on two continents this year, but a more modest proposal for extracting petroleum where polar bears roam has moved forward with much less attention.

While Shell proposed exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea about 80 miles off Alaska's northwest coast, a Texas oil company wants to build a gravel island as a platform for five or more extraction wells that could tap oil 6 miles from shore in the Beaufort Sea.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is deciding how to assess the environmental effect of a production plan for the Liberty Project by Hilcorp Alaska LLC, a subsidiary of Houston-based Hilcorp Energy Co.

A successful well would mean the first petroleum production in federal Arctic waters.

Hilcorp's plan for a 23-acre gravel island, about the size of 17.4 football fields, has drawn mixed reviews from conservationists and outright condemnation from environmentalists who believe the oil should stay in the ground.

Global warming is melting sea ice habitat beneath polar bears, walrus and ice seals, said Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.

"The impacts of an oil spill on top of that could be devastating and would be nearly impossible to clean up," she said.....

....Hilcorp would create the island in Foggy Island Bay, 15 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field in North America. Last year, Hilcorp purchased 50 percent of Liberty assets from BP Exploration Alaska, which drilled at the site in 1997 and discovered an estimated 120 million barrels of recoverable oil.

BP considered building a gravel island and also "ultra-extended reach drilling" from shore. The drilling type was deemed technically unfeasible, Hilcorp spokeswoman Lori Nelson said.

Hilcorp would place conventional wells on the island, positioning them over the oil bearing rock sitting under the ocean floor.

"It's proven to be a safe and effective means for oil and gas development in the Arctic," Nelson said by email. "Alaska has a 30-year record of safely operating offshore in the Arctic."....

....For the Liberty project, trucks carrying gravel would travel by ice road to a hole cut in sea ice. The trucks would deposit 83,000 cubic yards of gravel into 19 feet of water. The work surface would be 9.3 acres surrounded by a wall, providing a barrier to ice, waves and wildlife.....

....Residents, Epstein said, worry that islands will affect the migration patterns of bowhead whales harvested by subsistence hunters. Because the oil would come from federal waters, residents would not see revenues, but would be the ones most harmed by any spill.

The project is near the Beaufort Boulder Patch, an area of undersea boulders where kelp and algae grow in contrast to the otherwise soft ocean bottom.

The environmental review won't be completed until at least 2017, and production could be several more years off.

At the end of production, Hilcorp says it would plug the wells and remove slope protection, allowing ice and waves to erode the island.    entire article here

 

House Rail Safety Bill Introduced; Admin Calls for Stricter Drilling Regs

Thompson authors rail safety act

  April 19, 2015   Martinez News-Gazette

A second group of federal lawmakers has introduced legislation to regulate the transport of crude oil by rail.

U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) yesterday introduced the Crude-By-Rail Safety Act (H.R. 1804), which the congressman said would set new safety and security standards to address growing concerns that current standards fail to address the threat posed by transporting crude oil by rail.

Thompson said the bill would “establish new, common sense federal safety standards for railcars transporting oil across the country.”.

The act would take on a number of factors, including maximum volatility standard for crude oil transported by rail, higher fines for violating volatility standards and hazmat transport standards. The act will also seek to remove 37,700 unsafe cars off the rail network and recommend other measures to increase the safety of crude by rail.

“Public safety is priority No. 1 when it comes to transporting highly volatile crude oil,” Thompson said in the release.....

....“Rail cars transporting crude run through the heart of our communities, and as recent accidents have demonstrated, robust, comprehensive action is needed,” Thompson said in a press release....

According to Thompson, the bill would:
• establish a maximum volatility standard for crude oil;
• prohibit the use of DOT-111 tank cars;
• require comprehensive oil spill response planning and studies;
• increase fines for violating volatility and hazmat transport standards;
• require disclosure of train movements through communities and emergency response plans; and
• require railroads to implement a confidential close-call reporting system.
 ....  more here



 In this Wednesday, April 21, 2010 file photo, a large plume of smoke rises from fires on BP's Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig. (AP Photo)

 

Five Years After BP Oil Spill: New Regulations Call for Extensive Drilling Industry Reform

By Rachelle Gaynor, AccuWeather.com   4/20/15

April 20 marks the five-year anniversary of the BP oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The explosion, and subsequent 87-day-long oil leak, was the country's worst maritime petroleum spill in history. As a response to this tragedy, referred to as the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, several proposals came out to limit and regulate offshore drilling for oil and gas wells.

Last week, the Obama administration issued a new report that calls for strict regulations and safety enhancements to offshore oil and gas drilling. This is believed to be the most extensive set of regulations to be approved since the accident occurred five years ago.

"This rule builds on enhanced industry standards for blowout preventers to comprehensively address well design, well control and overall drilling safety," Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewel said in a press release....

...One major focus of the new regulations is the blowout preventer, a piece of safety equipment that malfunctioned in the Deepwater Horizon tragedy which resulted in "the loss of well control, an explosion, fire and subsequent days-long spill," Jewel explained.

"In addition to more stringent design requirements, the proposed rule requires improved controls of all repair and maintenance activities through the lifecycle of the blowout preventer and other well control equipment," she said.

Some of the other adjustments that the rule proposes are changes to overall well design, real-time monitoring of the wells and more immediate containment of leaks if they occur.