More news from AK

[MarvB]

Less than a month after Congress voted to deny producers access to the energy-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the Interior Department this week announced that it will make available thousands of acres of North Slope tundra for oil and natural gas leasing.

Interior said it plans to open 390,000 additional acres in the northeast corner of the 4.6 million-acre of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) possibly as early as next fall. The available acres, which had been withheld from leasing previously due to environmental and wildlife sensitivities, include areas north of Teshekpuk Lake to the Beaufort Sea in northern Alaska. Interior has deferred leasing in the area south of Teshekpuk Lake (211,000 acres).

This action by Interior fulfilled a 2002 recommendation in President Bush's national energy policy that directed Secretary Gale Norton to consider "additional environmentally responsible oil and gas development" in the NPRA.

The Northeast corner of the NPRA was opened to leasing in 1999. Since then, two lease sales have been held, which have resulted in a number of wells drilled and significant discoveries, according to Interior. The Northeast portion of the NPRA was not included in those sales due to fact that the area is prone to erosion and is home to migratory bird habitats, caribou and other wildlife.

Interior's announcement this week makes a total of 4.39 million acres, or 95% of the NPRA planning area, available for oil and gas leasing. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that federal lands in the entire NPRA, which covers 23 million acres, holds approximately 60 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas reserves, and 9.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil reserves. Gas production, however, is constrained by the lack of pipeline infrastructure.

Interior believes that the Northeast corner of the NPRA contains enough oil and gas resources to help stem the production decline from the maturing fields in the North Slope.

Both Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski lauded Interior's move. "We have streamlined the leasing process in approved drilling areas to avoid years of unnecessary delay and expensive red tape. I look forward to seeing these new procedures implemented in the NPRA," Domenici said.

"Today's announcement from the Interior Department is very good news for our state," Murkowski said. "Alaskans have proven that we can develop our tremendous oil and gas reserves in environmentally responsible ways while at the same time protecting subsistence resources."

The move by Interior to allow leasing in a previously closed portion of the NPRA was a major victory for Alaska, coming only weeks after congressional lawmakers opted not to open the coastal plain of Alaska's ANWR to oil and gas exploration and production. But it was a significant setback for environmentalists.

from Nat. Gas Intel.

 

[Oak]

The Northeast portion of the NPRA was not included in those sales due to fact that the area is prone to erosion and is home to migratory bird habitats, caribou and other wildlife.

So I assume the area is no longer prone to erosion and the wildlife is gone?

 

[BigHornRam]

So I assume that drilling there will cause erosion and will kill off all the wildlife?

 

[Tom]

The Alaska gov. likes it and thinks they'll do a good job. I hope so.

 

[mtmiller]

Paul, I will say yes, drilling will cause erosion. Surface diturbing activities on highly erosive soils will lead to erosion (indisputable).

Drilling will have an impact on wildlife. There will be pipelines, well pads, roads and additonal human activitity. All of these will impact wildlife. Will it cause all the wildlife to leave, obviously no, but without a doubt species will be impacted. Can it be mitigated? I will leave that to the specialists that are being paid to protect these resouces and hope they make the right decisions for wildlife and not just the ones accelerate the Bush Energy Policy.

 

[Erik in AK]

Here's the rub sportsfans...

NPRA was set aside in 1923 for potential (future) petroleum development (thus the name). Ostensibly, drilling there cannot not be stopped by histrionics from the left. Yet drilling there will have a greater impact on wildlife then drilling in ANWR would have.