EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Oil in the Arctic

Prudhoe Bay Oil Fields
Northern Alaska, USA

Explanation:  In the far north, at the edge of the North American continent, sits the heart of an amazing and extensive network of oil pumping stations and pipelines.  These are the Prudhoe Bay oil fields of North Slope, Alaska.

Since the discovery of oil here in 1968, this region has been the subject of an ever-expanding web of roads, pump stations, pipelines, wells, gravel mines, and exploratory sites.  As a source of oil for the country, this region is unparalleled.  But so too are the environmental concerns.  
  

Natural gas burnoff in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields.

 
Some sources cite an average of 400 oil spills annually on the North Slope since 1995, totaling 1.5 million gallons.  Other concerns entail diesel spills on the fragile tundra and into the Arctic Ocean, outfall of ozone, acid rain deposition, and disruption of wildlife populations and their seasonal migrations.  Occurring in the terrestrial area are caribou, muskox, owls, hawks, foxes, wolves, nesting shorebirds, and many other species.  The nearshore and offshore sites occur now in proposed critical habitat for the globally-threatened polar bear, and habitat for whales, sea ducks, and other wildlife.  
   

More than just a single "Alaskan pipeline," the oil complex along
the North Slope entails a vast network of multiple drilling sites.
(Click on the above image to better view one of the many
offshore drilling platforms in the distance, in this photo
surrounded by winter ice on the Beaufort Sea.)
  

According to a recent summary (Bradner 2009), the North Slope oil fields historically produced  over 2 million barrels of oil per day, but current output is now down to about a third of that, and oil production is declining at a rate of 5-6% a year.  What is the future for this complex?  Some plans entail controversially expanding oil exploration and extraction into ANWR, the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, and elsewhere offshore in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of the Arctic Ocean.  

The result is a push to find more oil sources.  Since the late 1990s, the State of Alaska has encouraged new companies to explore for oil on the North Slope, including Armstrong Oil and Gas, Pioneer Natural Resources, and two companies from Europe, TOTAL and Eni Oil and Gas (Bradner 2009).  These explorations resulted in some new findings of oil offshore, with additional albeit smaller findings still expected.  

The incredible sprawl of oil fields and development that is
Prudhoe Bay.  One needs a special authorization to enter the area.

Out on the Arctic Ocean arise several offshore drilling platforms.  One of the major ones is called "Northstar," which is the world's first year-round Arctic offshore oil drilling station.

The so-called "Northstar" offshore drilling platform, so-named by
BP after purchasing drilling leases from Shell.  Northstar was
developed in 1999 and 2000 on an artificial gravel island, and
includes a subsea pipeline.  (Compare the above photo with
another showing the rig during summer icemelt.)

Oil at the Northstar complex was discovered by Shell in 1983 and is estimated to hold about 176 million barrels of oil.  As with the onshore oil facilities, Northstar has garnered concern about environmental impacts, such as from Greenpeace who has challenged the operation from the start.  

Just as the road and pipeline infrastructure of the North Slope oil complexes stretch into the horizon, so too the controversies and expectations over oil development continue to stretch into the foreseeable future.

And what will be the environmental concerns under effects of climate change on wildlife and accessibility?

Information
     Bradner, M.  2009.  Exploration and drilling winter forecast.  Alaska Business Monthly, September 2009:22-27.