Other Agencies with Actions or Authorizations:

Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service

Department of the Interior, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement

Department of Defense, US Army Corps of Engineers - Regulatory

Description:

Hilcorp Alaska, LLC proposes to construct a man-made gravel island in Foggy Island Bay, Beaufort Sea, Alaska. The Liberty Development and Production Island (LDPI) would be approximately 6 miles offshore in approximately 19 feet of water. The project includes five stages: construction of ice roads; development of a new gravel mine; construction of the island and facilities; construction of a pipeline; and drilling and hydrocarbon production.

The LDPI will have drilling and production processing facilities designed to produce up to 65,000 barrels of crude oil and 120 million standard cubic feet of natural gas per day. The project life is anticipated to be 15 to 20 years, and recovery is estimated to be between 80 to 150 million stock tank barrels of oil. Oil produced from the island would be transported through a pipe-in-pipe subsea pipeline to the shoreline, where it will transition to an elevated 1.5-mile-long onshore pipeline and tie-in to the existing onshore Badami oil transportation pipeline. This infrastructure would transport sales-quality oil to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

Pause Text:

On 3/10/2020, BSEE met with the project sponsor. The project sponsor had not yet completed much work on the Request for Additional Information that was issued in July of 2019.  Therefore, BSEE identified they were unable to determine a timeline for action completion, as the project sponsor did not have a potential date for additional information submission. BSEE requested the "Authorization and Certification" action be placed in "paused" status. 

Litigation:

In 2018, several environmental groups challenged BOEM’s approval of the Liberty DPP. In December 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Petitioners. The Petitioners alleged there were NEPA violations centered on BOEM's analysis of lifecycle GHG emissions related to the no-action alternative, and ESA violations stemming from BOEM's reliance on what CBD alleged is a flawed biological opinion from the FWS. The Ninth Circuit Court vacated BOEM's approval of the Liberty DPP and remanded it to the agency. BOEM is in the process of determining next steps. The Court's decision is available here:  https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/12/07/18-73400

Associated Permitting:

Environmental Protection Agency - NPDES Permit: Completed 10/26/2018, available here: https://www.epa.gov/npdes-permits/npdes-permit-hilcorp-alaska-liberty-drilling-and-production-island

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement - Oil Spill Response Plan: Returned to Hilcorp July 2019 with a Request For Additional Information (RFAI) 

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement - Platform Approval Program and Platform Verification Program: Approval timeline dependent upon Oil Spill Response Plan Approval

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement - Application for Permit to Drill: Approval timeline dependent upon Oil Spill Response Plan Approval 

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement - Production Safety Systems Permitting: Approval timeline dependent upon Oil Spill Response Plan Approval 

Note: The project timeline represents the cooperating agencies' estimates at when agency actions could occur depending on the project proponent's future submissions.