Alaska Native Corporations Work at Home: Serving the North Slope.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: Alaska Native

The 13th Inuit Circumpolar Council General Assembly took place in Utqiagvik in July. During that assembly, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation CEO Rex Rock Sr. voiced his support for oil and gas development in the Arctic. "Our region is dependent upon the economy that oil and gas development brings," he stated. Yet he was also clear to express that it is vital for Alaska Natives to have a voice in the discussion of how the oil and gas industry moves forward on the North Slope. "By having a seat at the table during the decision process, we will have the opportunity to influence projects for protection of our rights as indigenous people."

And many of the corporations established by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act have engagement in the oilfield beyond roles as stakeholders and resident experts of the Alaska Arctic--they participate in the oilfield through lease-holding, exploration, development, operations, and the many, many support services related to those activities. Being involved in the oil and gas industry directly is both an economic opportunity for residents of the Arctic as well as a method to ensure local knowledge and talent are used for the benefit of the operating companies, the environment, and Alaska as a whole.

Olgoonik Oilfield Services

Olgoonik Corporation is headquartered in and is the corporation for Wainwright, located on the coast of the Chukchi Sea on Alaska's north coast. The company has more than 1,300 shareholders, almost half of whom live in the area. "We are a North Slope village, so we're trying to provide services within the North Slope," says James Nunley, general manager of Olgoonik Oilfield Services (OOS).

The company finds itself "at home in the Arctic" and provides a range of remote construction, operation, and environmental support services, including construction, demolition, and waste management; well plugging and abandonment, fuel hauling, and camp/facility management; and regulatory permitting, spill response and cleanup, and work plan preparation, just to skim the list.

Nunley says that recently the company has been under contract with another North Slope corporation, hauling more than 500,000 gallons of fuel from Utqiagvik to Atqasuk. "OOS was successful in its first year of hauling fuel, and we met the requirements of the contract, so we're going to go back and do it for the foreseeable future," he says.

OOS has also been working on a legacy well plug and abandonment contract for the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In 2016 the company successfully completed three well closures that were near Utqiagvik "just off the road system," and in the winter of 2017 the company "launched into NPR-A 150 miles away from the road system, with complete equipment, and completed five plug and abandonments for BLM in the Legacy Well Program," for a total of eight closures to date.

The BLM Legacy Well Program is under an IDIQ contract, which means Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity; a government contract that...