As there are no permanent roads to point Thomson, Fairweather E&P Services Inc. and Nanuq/AFC have built more than 30 miles of ice road to facilitate the transport of heavy equipment and materials while protecting the North Slope environment. Most of the ice road goes after the shore line along the Beaufort Sea.
The Alaska department of natural resources (DNR) certified the ice-road consent on January 27, 2009 allowing mobilization of the drilling rig and gave assistance to other regulatory agencies to expedite permitting to allow drilling to start.
Craig Haymes, Alaska production manager for ExxonMobil, said, We are moving forward with drilling and development activities at Point Thomson, for the mutual benefit of Alaskans and the Point Thomson Unit working interest owners. DNR staff and other local, State and Federal agencies have worked tirelessly to process permits necessary to allow drilling to begin. We are on schedule to begin production at Point Thomson by year-end 2014 and look forward to working with the State to resolve the remaining Point Thomson issues to ensure the project schedule is not impacted. Construction crews recently completed the final installation of camps and support facilities at the existing gravel pad to accept the rig. Over 250 people will work on these drilling operations, with an average of over 500 people at year-end 2014, when we expect to begin production.”
The early phase of the project will process about 200 million cubic feet per day of Point Thomson gas so as to produce about 10,000 barrels per day of liquid condensate into the trans Alaska pipeline system by year end 2014. The left over gas will then be recycled into the point Thomson reservoir. The point Thomson unit working interest owners committed $120 million to the drilling and development activities in 2008, with further investments of about $250 million anticipated in 2009.
Additionally the ExxonMobil, the other major point Thomson owners participating in the existing drilling and development activity comprise of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. and ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc.
