BOEM releases draft SEIS for 2008 Chukchi Sea lease sale

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for Outer Continental Shelf Leas Sale No. 193, which originally was held in 2008.

Comments on the revised analysis, which BOEM undertook to comply with an Apr. 24 remand order from US District Court for Alaska, will be accepted through Dec. 22. The agency also will hold seven public hearings across the state and consult with Alaska Native tribes during that period.

“In the analysis released today, BOEM used a new exploration and development scenario to evaluate the potential environmental effects of oil and gas activities associated with Lease Sale 193,” BOEM Acting Director Walter D. Cruickshank said on Oct 31.

“We look forward to receiving additional public input as we continue to take a balanced approach to the safe and responsible energy development in the region,” he said.

The US Minerals Management Service, BOEM’s predecessor, published Sale 193’s original EIS in 2007, and held the sale the following year. Subsequent legal challenges and federal court decisions remanded the sale back to BOEM for further analysis, specifically related to MMS’s estimates of production levels from likely offshore oil fields that might be developed in the Chukchi Sea.

BOEM said its analysis for the draft SEIS used the best available data, including actual bids, to estimate the highest amount of production that could reasonably result from Sale 193.

Higher E&P scenario

It predicted a higher exploration and production scenario than previous analyses, based on a better understanding about existing geologic structures in the region as well as improved information about where industry operators are likely to focus their development activities.

BOEM has scheduled public hearings in Kotzebue on Nov. 17, in Point Hope on Nov. 18, in Point Lay on Nov. 19, in Wainwright on Nov. 20, in Anchorage on Dec. 1, in Barrow on Dec. 3, and in Fairbanks on Dec. 4. Each will begin at 7 p.m.

A second US Department of the Interior agency that originally was part of MMS, the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, issued a suspension of operations earlier this year for all Chukchi leases issued in Sale 193.

BOEM said the suspension stops the lease term from running while it completes this supplemental environmental review, as directed by the court.

Initial responses

“We appreciate the release of the draft and are reviewing it,” a spokesman for Shell Offshore Co. in Alaska told OGJ by e-mail. The Royal Dutch Shell PLC subsidiary asked BSEE for a 5-year extension of its leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas in July because circumstances beyond its control are preventing it from completing even its first exploration well (OGJ Online, Oct. 28, 2014).

US Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas.), the Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s ranking minority member, said she hopes the revised EIS satisfies the court and allow responsible drilling to resume next summer. “There’s already been some slippage in the timeline for releasing the revised review,” she said on Oct. 31. “We’re now getting down to the wire and it’s vital that there be no further delay.”

ConocoPhillips Co. and Statoil USA also acquired leases in Sale 193, which earned $2.7 billion for the federal treasury, Murkowski observed.

Twelve environmental organizations jointly said the draft SEIS confirms there should be no drilling for crude oil in the Chukchi Sea. “It’s disappointing to see BOEM seemingly rush an analysis out just so Shell can follow up its disastrous 2012 Arctic Ocean drilling season with another effort that endangers the birds and wildlife of the Arctic,” Audubon Alaska Policy Director Jim Adams said.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].