New Year Offers Promise, Progress for Liberty Project: TAPS could see much-needed throughput increase.

• Author: Mottl, Judy
• Position: Oil & Gas

If there was just one word to describe the long-in-the-making Liberty Project slated for Alaska's North Slope--a light-oil drilling operation that would boast a man-made 9.3-acre island and is projected to cost more than $1 billion--it would likely be "arduous."

A review of the project's long and winding history is illuminating: Liberty Project faced two decades of hurdles and obstacles since Shell Oil Company drilled four wells to evaluate marketable oil reserves between 1982 and 1987, as noted in a chronology published by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

In 1996 BP Exploration (Alaska) acquired the Liberty lease and, in 1997, drilled the first exploratory well five miles off the coast in Foggy Island Bay. That initial drill revealed an estimated 120 million barrels of recoverable reserves--indicating that the site could be the largest light oil reservoir found on the North Slope.

For the next sixteen years Liberty underwent a series of regulatory reviews relating to a long list of potential issues, from impact to a wide range of endangered species to geomagnetic observations. The project essentially stalled in 2012 with BP's announcement that it would not pursue the proposed Liberty project in its current form.

Then BP, in the first half of 2014, sold its interest in four North Slope Alaska oil fields to Hilcorp Alaska LLC, including a 50 percent stake in Liberty (BP retained a 40 percent stake). ASRC Exploration holds the remaining 10 percent. The partners estimate Liberty is home to 150 million to 330 million barrels of oil-in-place.

So, while Liberty has faced an arduous journey, its future appears to be brighter than ever as 2018 dawns and all its predicted benefits--from increased state revenue and an economic boost tied to hundreds of new construction jobs to ensuring a longer lifespan for the 800-mile Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS)--are closer to becoming a reality.

In fact, 2018 may very well mark the most critical timeframe for a project that would create Alaska's 19th artificial island and its biggest one to date.

Where Liberty Stands as the New Year Begins

The start of the New Year should find federal and state agencies two months into what is expected to be a ten-month regulatory review.

The assessment was scheduled to begin immediately after a ninety-day public comment period that ended November 18, 2017. The comment period followed the issuance of a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) in August of...