The exterior of what was BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.'s headquarters in midtown Anchorage is seen on Aug. 27, 2019. The company, once a dominant player in Alaska, sold off its assets, ended its production activities and vacated the headquarters building in 2020. But it remains responsible for cleanup of a pair of old North Slope exploration sites. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
BP stopped producing oil in Alaska in 2020 after selling all its remaining assets to Hilcorp, but the energy giant still has some unfinished business in the state: cleanup and closure of two old oil-exploration sites.
The company is responsible for plugging and abandoning a well drilled in 1963 at a site 91 miles southwest of Deadhorse, according to state records. The company applied to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources in July for an off-road travel permit to complete the work.
BP itself did not drill the well, identified by the state as Gubik 1. It was drilled by Colorado Oil and Gas, a now-defunct company.
BP wound up with the liability because it was in a joint venture with Colorado Oil and Gas and Sinclair, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. BP held an ownership interest in the lease, company spokespeople said.
BP has applied for a permit from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources to travel across the territory next winter along a snow trail it intends to construct to access the site. The company has hired a contractor, and cleanup work is expected to be completed by next spring, according to the application.
Meanwhile, BP is completing cleanup work at another North Slope exploration site, said Cesar Rodriguez, a company spokesperson.
The company has been tasked with cleaning and remediating the Foggy Island Bay State No. 1 site about 20 miles northeast of Deadhorse and just outside the boundary of the Prudhoe Bay Unit.
The site is a gravel pad that has numerous remnants of past drilling activities. The area was drilled in 1975 by Amoco, according to state documents. Years later, in 1989, Amoco drilled several test holes there as part of a reserve-pit closure plan, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. BP bought Amoco in 1998.
It has been a yearslong project for BP. The company is responsible for addressing an “inactive reserve pit, burn pit, sewer pit, lined fuel storage area, and cellar drain pit,” according to a 2022 Alaska Department of Natural Resources public notice about the project. “Activities include the removal and disposal of contaminated materials, including drilling waste and crude-oil impacted material and gravel. Additionally, the project includes removing a layer of foam board insulation (geofoam) that underlays the pad,” the 2022 notice said.
Rodgriguez said BP is not aware of any other old well sites that it is responsible for cleaning.
The sites tasked to BP are among about four dozen orphan wells or other remnants of historic drilling activity that the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation is managing. Those sites, on state or private land, are mostly in Southcentral Alaska. Some are in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Several are farther south and are relics of the first Alaska oil drilling conducted a century ago at Katalla, about 50 miles southeast of the Prince William Sound port town of Cordova.
The state’s orphan well program received a boost from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 under the Biden administration. That legislation provided $32.2 million for cleanup of sites that were once located on federal leases but are now on state or private territory.
The state’s orphan well program is separate from the BLM’s Alaska Legacy Wells Program. That program concerns closure and cleanup of old wells drilled prior to 1982 within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
