ConocoPhillips to go ahead with Chukchi Sea drilling

well I must say that this is interesting news indeed…

[B]ConocoPhillips to go ahead with Chukchi Sea drilling[/B]

MARCH 8, 2013 —

While Shell has delayed its plans for drilling offshore Alaska ConocoPhillips plans to go ahead with exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea during the 2014 open water season.

In a document submitted to this year’s NOAA Fisheries public Open Water Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, ConocoPhillips Company said it “intends to drill one or two exploration wells within existing lease holdings in the Chukchi Sea during the open water season of 2014 to test whether oil deposits are present in a commercially viable quantity and quality. The drilling will be conducted with a jack-up rig and a variety of vessels (including tugs and barges, ice management and oil spill response vessels) and aircraft (fixed wing and helicopter) to support the drill rig operations. Activities that are part of the drilling operation include: (1) drill rig mobilization and positioning, (2) ice management, (3) drill rig resupply, (4) personnel transfer, (5) refueling, (6) oil spill response capability, and (7) drill rig demobilization. In addition, two or three vertical seismic profile (VSP) data acquisition runs per drilled well will be conducted from the rig.”

ConocoPhillips was one of the major participants in the Chukchi Sea federal outer continental shelf (OCS) lease sale held in 2008. The company was awarded 98 OCS tracts, or 0.56 million acres, with total lease costs of $506 million.

Reuters reports that, at the Open Water meeting, Mike Faust, ConocoPhillipd Chukchi program manager, said that the company would take Shell’s experience into account, but said there were key differences between their respective Arctic efforts.

Conoco Phillips is targeting the Devils Paw prospect, which is farther south in the Chukchi than Shell’s prospects, so its operations will be in an area where sea ice melts earlier in the spring and forms later in the fall, meaning a longer open-water season in most years, he said.

ConocoPhillips also plans to use a jack-up rig, , rather than the mobile units used by Shell, noted Mr. Faust.

The unit that ConocoPhillips will be using is the Noble Houston Colbert under a one-year contract with Noble that extends through fourth-quarter 2014 at $235,000/day.

Capable of drilling wells up to 35,000 ft deep in 400 ft of water, the jack-up is scheduled for delivery from Singapore’s Jurong Shipyard during the second-half 2013 and is being built to a Friede & Goldman JU3000N design that resulted from the combined development efforts of the shipbuilder, Noble, and Friede & Goldman.

take your king crab pot.

I wonder if Alaskan crews will be running the OSV/tug side of things this time…

[QUOTE=commtuna;102178]I wonder if Alaskan crews will be running the OSV/tug side of things this time…[/QUOTE]

Most Alaskan crews’ are with Seattle based companies. It will be interesting to see if Western Alaska operators are used. Crowley, Western, and Foss all have been there, Samson goes to Dutch.

[QUOTE=seacomber;102229]Most Alaskan crews’ are with Seattle based companies. It will be interesting to see if Western Alaska operators are used. Crowley, Western, and Foss all have been there, Samson goes to Dutch.[/QUOTE]

Well that’s a nice thought but we’ll have to see how Conoco Phillips chooses to operate in the Arctic in 2014. I really wish the big Alaska maritime operators would JV with some of the large OSV companies to run the vessels in management and manning contracts. Even better would be for companies like Crowley or Saltchuck with their deep pockets start building their own OSVs for the Arctic.

[QUOTE=c.captain;102230]Well that’s a nice thought but we’ll have to see how Conoco Phillips chooses to operate in the Arctic in 2014. I really wish the big Alaska maritime operators would JV with some of the large OSV companies to run the vessels in management and manning contracts. Even better would be for companies like Crowley or Saltchuck with their deep pockets start building their own OSVs for the Arctic.[/QUOTE]

Agreed, vessels that best meet the challenging conditions between Seattle and the Arctic. Right now the only support road to the Arctic terminates in Prudhoe Bay which was ice bound all but three weeks a year when i was there (1975), it would be interesting to hear how much that has changed. There has been a road proposed crossing the Alaska Peninsula that would connect Cook Inlet to somewhere near/in Bristol Bay. The mining industry could use more support for this road as it has run into some resistance. Start throwing numbers in Juneau and things get done no matter what the concerns are, Alaska is still a frontier.

Only if it gets done with Federal dollars that flow into legislators’ pockets.

Alaska is still a frontier.

Alaska is still in its “gilded age” and run in the best traditions of Boss Tweed, Gould, and Fiske.

[QUOTE=Steamer;102246]Only if it gets done with Federal dollars that flow into legislators’ pockets.

Alaska is still in its “gilded age” and run in the best traditions of Boss Tweed, Gould, and Fiske.[/QUOTE]

Steamer, you couldn’t not have stated it any better vis…

[B]The $70-million ferry nobody wants[/B]
Bruce Buls
August 30, 2011

To be more specific, it’s the $70-million, twin-hull, variable-draft, icebreaking ferry that nobody wants. At least that’s how it appears just about a year after the boat’s construction was completed.

The boat is the Susitna, and it’s a 195’x60’ demonstrator for a landing-craft concept developed by Lockheed Martin and funded by the Office of Naval Research. The experimental vessel was built at Alaska Ship & Drydock in Ketchikan and was originally intended to be used as a ferry across Knik Arm from Anchorage to Port McKenzie and other more remote spots in the Cook Inlet area.

When I wrote the cover story about the Susitna for the November issue of WorkBoat last year, I said, “The Susitna will not be going into service as a ferry across Knik Arm until some time next year. The Mat-Su Borough and the city of Anchorage are still trying to figure out just where and how the vessel landings will be accomplished on both sides.”

“Next year” is rapidly coming to a close and the borough is still trying to figure it out, according to a news report from the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman newspaper.

The Susitna is still in Ketchikan, which is almost 1,000 miles southeast of Anchorage.

The boat needs to work. The Navy footed the bill for almost all of the design and construction so it could find out if the concept would work as a connector for sea-base operations. There are over 1,000 sensors in the boat to gather data about the engineering.

And Alaskans on the north side of Knik Arm need a faster way to get to and from the Anchorage area.

Frankly, the Susitna isn’t even close to being an ideal ferry. It’s way more complex than a simple car ferry needs to be, even in ice conditions. But it’s got a car deck and passenger seating, and it could well be hauling people and stuff across Knik Arm.

As usual, one on the biggest stumbling blocks is money. According to the newspaper story, “Federal money has more or less run out.”

Ain’t that the truth.

The borough, which is supposed to officially own the ferry, is scheduled to meet today to discuss the Susitna’s future. Let’s hope it figures something out and puts the Susitna into service sooner rather than later.

Of course UofA Fairbanks is soon to get its new $225M research vessel which we don’t need because the USCG has a research vessel/icebreaker named the USCGC HEALY but the scientists don’t like the labs on that vessel and they don’t think the USCG does a good job running a research operation. Of course the scientists MUST have the BEST and MOST ADVANCED vessel possible of their research won’t be world class! WHAT A LOAD OF FUCKING DUNG!

HEALY is also a shitty icebreaker so now we have to build more of those!

.

Yep, yep. You are both on it.

Alaska’s Corrupt
Bastards Club
The name “Corrupt Bastards Club” has been widely used to designate Alaska legislators implicated in a massive ongoing federal corruption investigation.

A separate investigation of Alaska’s fisheries industry involving Republican Senator Ted Stevens and his son Ben is expected to snag many high-profile fisheries executives and their cronies in Alaska and Seattle.

Congressman Don Young has reported nearly $2 million in legal bills - and he hasn’t even been arrested - yet.

So far the massive FBI-IRS investigation has snagged two Alaskan Republican members of Congress, one of their aides the ex-president of the state Senate , six state legislators, two lobbyists, two VECO executives and their families, the former chief of staff of corrupt ex-governor Frank Murkowski, and a former businessman who paid bribes to a legislator.

“To be more specific, it’s the $70-million, twin-hull, variable-draft, icebreaking ferry that nobody wants. At least that’s how it appears just about a year after the boat’s construction was completed.”

They can use it instead of the 1 billion dollar bridge to nowhere. I love Alaska but it’s politics makes Louisiana politics look like little league. I sure miss the old Ted Stevens. I think he was silenced with that plane crash.

Info and links with more info about the plan http://gcaptain.com/move-over-shell-conocophillips-hopes-to-drill-in-the-chukchi-sea-in-2014/

[QUOTE=seacomber;102254]Yep, yep. You are both on it.

Alaska’s Corrupt
Bastards Club
The name “Corrupt Bastards Club” has been widely used to designate Alaska legislators implicated in a massive ongoing federal corruption investigation.

A separate investigation of Alaska’s fisheries industry involving Republican Senator Ted Stevens and his son Ben is expected to snag many high-profile fisheries executives and their cronies in Alaska and Seattle.

Congressman Don Young has reported nearly $2 million in legal bills - and he hasn’t even been arrested - yet.

So far the massive FBI-IRS investigation has snagged two Alaskan Republican members of Congress, one of their aides the ex-president of the state Senate , six state legislators, two lobbyists, two VECO executives and their families, the former chief of staff of corrupt ex-governor Frank Murkowski, and a former businessman who paid bribes to a legislator.[/QUOTE]

What is really strange [or maybe not] is that a family from Louisiana has contributed heavily to Don Youngs defense fund and is one of the largest political contributors in Alaska. The USA is about as politically corrupt as many third world countries. Mexico and Nigeria got nothing on us.

The family always ensures they stay within the law when dealing with politicians and foreign entities. When the state was going to close a bridge and a library near their office, they bought and run the library and fixed the bridge out of their own pocket.

Nothing illegal there but u can see why they r highly regarded locally and nationally.

[QUOTE=Too bad steam is gone;102271]“To be more specific, it’s the $70-million, twin-hull, variable-draft, icebreaking ferry that nobody wants. At least that’s how it appears just about a year after the boat’s construction was completed.”

By KIM MURPHY — LOS ANGELES TIMES

PORT MACKENZIE – The late Sen. Ted Stevens is perhaps best remembered for the millions of dollars in federal booty he steered toward Alaska during his reign as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

One of the Republican senator’s more notable legacies was the construction of a $78-million amphibious assault vessel for the Navy – a military prototype that he diverted to his home state as a ferry to haul commuters from the rapidly growing suburbs north of Anchorage to jobs downtown.

A $4.5 million passenger terminal was constructed for the state-of-the-art, ice-capable catamaran, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough proceeded with big plans to expand its port, link it to an Interior railway and foster communities in the remote farm fields that surround the proposed ferry landing – defying critics across the country who held up the “ferry to nowhere” as an example of wasteful federal pork-barrel spending.

The vessel, named the Susitna, was built but never put into service. The end of Stevens’ reign in 2008 meant no more federal handouts, leaving little money to build landings, insufficient cash to subsidize operations and no means of persuading Anchorage to build a dock on the other side.

Officials in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough not long ago announced they were offering the Susitna, free, to any government entity in the U.S. that would take it.

The borough’s best hopes are if the state of Alaska decides to integrate the Susitna into its ferry system, or if some private operator – it’s free only if it goes to another government entity – elects to buy it. Los Angeles County officials confirmed this week they are in “very preliminary” discussions about taking the vessel.

“We think a ship like that could provide us with a versatile public safety asset for emergency response, mainly to Catalina Island, where the ability to move people and equipment and firefighting apparatus is currently a challenge,” said Ryan Alsop, Los Angeles County assistant chief executive.

County firefighters must travel south to Camp Pendleton to load heavy equipment aboard Navy vessels for the trip to Catalina, Fire Inspector Brian Riley said.

Alsop said county officials also had discussed with the current passenger ferry operator, Catalina Express, the possibility of using the Susitna to carry passenger automobiles to the island. “We’ll hold some meetings, look at the boat, figure out the cost and all the logistics,” he said.

Government entities in several other states, as well as operators from Europe and Asia, have also expressed interest. The Alaska ferry system, which initially said the Susitna would not fit at its docks, has decided to take a second look. Bids, including private offers, are scheduled to be reviewed on March 29.

“All we really want is to find a good home for it,” Borough Manager John Moosey said. They are running out of time.

The Borough Assembly reluctantly wrote another check recently for the vessel’s $80,000-a-month upkeep about 800 miles away in Ketchikan, fearful that they may be required to repay up to $13.5 million in federal transportation grants if they abandon it – but unsure how long they can afford to keep supporting a boat most Mat-Su residents have never seen.

“I think it goes without saying that there’s not a single person around this table that’s happy with this asset that we have that’s now a liability to the tune of $80,000 or $90,000 a month,” Warren Keogh cautioned fellow Borough Assembly members who have blustered about selling the boat for scrap. “But if we don’t fund this, would we be mildly stupid, moderately stupid or extraordinarily stupid?”

Mat-Su is where former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin has her home in Wasilla. The population of the borough has grown 50 percent over the last decade, to about 93,000 people. The farming region, once known mainly for growing giant cabbages, is now known more for chain restaurants, department stores and affordably priced subdivisions.

Borough officials expect the population to reach as much as half a million over the next 50 years. A new $240 million state prison has opened near the port, where the ferry terminal has been drafted for port offices, and plans are underway for a $272 million rail line to link the port with the vast untapped mineral commodities of interior Alaska.

The problem is linking all that future development with downtown Anchorage, so close you can see it from Port MacKenzie across the 2.7-mile-wide finger at the top of Cook Inlet known as Knik Arm. Getting there by car takes an hour or more from the towns of Palmer and Wasilla, and even longer from where the borough is projecting much of its future growth.

Port Director Marc Van Dongen said the ferry became economically unworkable when designers cut the number of cars it could carry by more than half, to just 20.

“How can you justify spending $40 million (on docks) for just 20 vehicles going back and forth?” he said.

The real need, borough officials say, is not a ferry but a bridge. But that project is costly – at least $750 million – and controversial, threatening the historic neighborhood of Government Hill in northwest Anchorage.

“We always argued the ferry would help the bridge get built,” borough spokeswoman Patty Sullivan said. But that argument is “already dead,” she said, along with the borough’s hopes of giving a home to the Susitna.

“One of the premier naval architects in the world worked on this ship. It can crawl up on land, offload heavy equipment. It can handle rough sea swells. The ice just passes it by,” she said. “It’s a real beauty, and it just needs the right home, because our dream isn’t happening.”

you know looking at the design of the thing, she might be able to be retrofitted into an spill recovery vessel and being ice strengthened could be useful in the Arctic for Shell and Conoco Phillips. If one of the Alaska Regional Native Corporations took the vessel and then funded the conversion, they would be in a tremendous position to leverage the oil majors to putting the SUSITNA on hire.

Just an idea for any of your Native Corps out there.

[QUOTE=tengineer;102402]What is really strange [or maybe not] is that a family from Louisiana has contributed heavily to Don Youngs defense fund and is one of the largest political contributors in Alaska. The USA is about as politically corrupt as many third world countries. Mexico and Nigeria got nothing on us.[/QUOTE]

Lemme guess which famiglia you speak of?