This project was approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on February 27, 1978. Stipulations for the permit call for removal of the island when the island is abandoned. Regulatory stipulations for operations and management of the island are under supervision of the State Oil and Gas Con. servation Committee of the Dept. of Natural Resources. When Sohio-BP dismantled its operations on its Sag No.1 gravel island, after having plugged its two exploratory wells, the State ruled that because the island had become an important nesting ground, the island was not to be removed.
EXXON NO.1 DUCK ISLAND UNIT, Authorized in Jan., 1977, the near shore gravel island was built on an existing lease this summer, and drilling was begun. The proposed BP gravel island would appear similar.
Exxon's Experimental Ice Island
On September 20th, the U.S. Corps of Engineers issued public notice of its receipt of a permit application for the construction of a 1200-foot diameter ice island approximately 6 miles north of the ARCO East Dock and about 3 miles northeast of Gull Island in Prudhoe Bay (where ARCO has also drilled and plugged at least two exploratory wells. The findings of all the above-mentioned explorations will be kept confidential until after the joint Federal/State Beaufort Lease Sales.)
Union Oil's East Harrison Bay Ice Island near Thetis Island was the first man-made offshore structure in the U.S. Beaufort Sea. The well was plugged and the island melted in 1977. Union has not revealed the results of the exploration. The proposed EXXON experimental ice island would be larger, designed to survive annual breakup.
The purpose of this ice island will be to determine if a permanent ice island can be built to permit 12-month operation in water up to 10 feet deep. In 1976, Union Oil was successful in constructing the first ice island in the Arctic in 9 feet of water off Thetis Island in East Harrison Bay. This island was only large enough to sustain a winter-only exploratory operation. EXXON's new ice island experiment would try to demonstrate the year-round potential of larger man-made ice islands and thus ease the offshore need for gravel, a scarce and expensive item in the Arctic. No drilling would occur on this island, scheduled for construction beginning November of this year.
The structural properties of ice have long been known to be suitable for construction purposes. The construction of an ice island consists in pumping sea water from below the ice onto the pad site, flooding the area to a depth of a few inches, and waiting for the water to freeze. The process is repeated several times. As the weight of the man-made ice increases, the natural ice stretches down until it is firmly anchored on the sea-bottom.
Next, a huge bottom-anchored ring of ice and snow is built around the pad to receive the brunt of the lateral thrust of the ice.
Then a moat is excavated part way around the island to protect against any ice movement threatening the ring.
Finally, snow fenses are constructed around the island to prevent blowing snow from covering the drill site.
Union's Harrison Bay ice island was built up to a height of 12 feet above the sea floor, 3 feet above the water.
The outside diameter of the protective ring was 1,000 feet. The width of the moat was 11 ft.
Sohio-BP Gravel Island
The Army Corps of Engineers received the application for the Sohio-BP gravel island operation in 10 ft of water 1-mile north of the Niakuk Islands. This project would begin in November with the removal of shore-fast ice and replacement with gravel. Rig-up would occur in January for stratigraphic core testing with a chance that oil or gas could be discovered in the process.
Sohio-11P has joined with the villages of Nuiqsut and Kaktovik in asking the Corps of Engineers to hold public hearings on this project. and the Corps has agreed. In the meantime, Sohio-BP has begun flying village leaders from the two villages to view the actual site before freezeup.
Reindeer Island Stratigraphic Test
HP spokesperson Tim Bradner has acknowledged BP's desire to take over the proposed Reindeer Island stratigraphic test program for which state permit has been made by a small earth science consulting firm. HP would lead a consortium of 15 companies interested in drilling a stratigraphic test on an off-structural location where chances of hitting oil are nil.
The island is within the proposed joint Federal/State lease sale, and the test would yield geological data to be used to plan how to bid in the sale, planned for late 1979. BP's consortium is asking the state to agree to keep its test results secret until after the sale is held, even if the sale is delayed.
Artificial fill islands, constructed from sand, gravel, and silt, must be made strong enough to withstand tremendous lateral pressures caused by ice movements against the islands.
In construction of a typical island, a berm of 2 cu. ft. sandbags is built up to water level to retail the fill material. Then the fill is dumped in. After the island is built up to the deisred height above water level, the slopes are protected with a layer of poly-filter cloth overlain with large 2 cu. yard sandbags. This provides the island armor against which the ice fails as it rides up the slope.
Oil companies have drilled exploratory wells from 16 artificial fill islands in Mackenzie Bay area. A typical island costs $2.5 million to construct, requiring 48,000 cubic yards of fill material plus 50,000 2 cu. ft. sandbags and 8600 2 cu. yd. bags. Construction can often be accomplished in 30 days.
Exxon Announces Results of Seconds Pt. Thomson Well
ANCHORAGE-Exxon USA announced today that the Pt. Thomson Unit No.2 well on Alaska's North Slope has been completed after reaching a total depth of 14,117 feet.
A test of the interval from 11,580 to 11,678 feet flowed 21 degree API gravity oil at a rate of 248 barrels per day with a gas/oil ratio of 500 cubic feet per barrel, according to Rod L. Boane, manager of Exxon's Alaska Exploration District.
This well is located four miles west-southwest of the Pt. Thomson Unit No.1 well on a farm-in from a group of companies including Phillips, Mobil, Pennzoil, Al-Aquitaine, Star Oil & Gas, Coastal States Gas, Gas Producing Enterprises, Forest Oil, Grace Petroleum, Newmont Oil, Sunlite International, and Trans- World Oil & Gas Limited.
Greenies, NSB Team Up
Culminating a 3-year effort by Mayor Eben Hopson to join formally with environmental groups to plan the environmental defense of the Arctic, the North Slope Borough has agreed to join in a comprehensive program of legal research with Alaska's only public interest environmental law firm, Trustees for Alaska, in a Beaufort Sea Project. The research will include the review of the draft environmental impact statement for the joint Federal/ State Beaufort Sea lease sale scheduled for December, 1979, and the review of the proposed Pt. Thomson lease sale stipulations developed this past summer by the Alaska Agency Advisory Committee on Leasing. This work will be followed with the design of a legal regime for implementing the Borough's Arctic Coastal Zone Management program.
Heading up this project for Trustees will be Robert E. Mintz, 30, an attorney specializing in environmental law. Mintz is a 1975 graduate of Yale Law School, and in the same year graduated from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs with a Masters degree in Public Affairs (Economics & Public Policy). After graduation, Mintz clerked for Federal Circuit Judge Robert P. Anderson in Connecticut for a year before joining the staff of Trustees for Alaska. Mintz has handled Trustees' Beaufort Sea work since it began in early 1978.
Mintz will be joined on the project by Susanne Weller, 26, a recent graduate from the University of Michigan Law School, specializing in environmental law.
Trustees for Alaska is a non-profit Alaska corporation established in 1975 to serve as the legal arm of the environmental protection movement in Alaska, and has a membership of about one thousand from both within and outside of Alaska. The Executive Director, attorney Wilson A Rice, served with Alaska Legal Services, Inc. for five years before joining Trustees.
We have wells drilled. We have proven oil in those wells. Capping has been done and who now is the Trustee owner of our oil????