State transportation officials have shelved one plan for a new resource-development road on the North Slope but are still working on two others.
Most efforts are now concentrated on a possible 60-mile gravel road east from Prudhoe Bay toward the undeveloped Point Thomson natural gas field that would facilitate exploration in the area as well as a pipeline to the gas field, according to Mike McKinnon, manager of the rural resources roads program in the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.
Meanwhile, a 20-mile road extension from the established oil field roads in the central North Slope to the Colville River, intended to assist exploration in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, has been put on the back-burner, McKinnon said. The state DOT had named the spine-road extension the "Colville River Road Project."
"We were a bit out in front of the industry on this one," McKinnon said. The state transportation department and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources had expected more support from industry for the road, but the companies advised the agency that their plans are at such an early stage that they couldn't support the road extension, McKinnon said.
"They told us we were too far out in front of their development plans, and I took this as a sign that we should stand-down our effort on spine-road extension, at least for a few years," he said. Engineering and soils data collected for the project over two years will be stored. The project would also have required a $150 million, 3,300-foot bridge across the Colville River.
Meanwhile, there is more industry support for an alternative plan for a 50-mile road farther south that could be built from the Dalton Highway west into the foothills area south of the existing oil fields, McKinnon said. This is the "Foothills West" road project.
Because of gently rolling hills and sloping terrain in this area, and the scarcity of deep-water lakes from which to draw water, conventional winter ice roads are very difficult and expensive to build, McKinnon said. The idea of an all-weather gravel road into the region, which has potential for natural gas discoveries, has strong support from industry, he said.
However, a new alternative for access to this area is for a series of airfields and local roads to be built by the state in lieu of a continuous road from the Dalton Highway, McKinnon said.
Independent oil and gas companies interested in the area as well as DNR have asked the state transportaion department to consider the airfield idea. The notion is so preliminary that the number of airfields that could be constructed and where they might be located, is undetermined, McKinnon said.
The state is now doing further analysis of the airfield idea as well as the plan for a road. How construction costs would be paid has yet to be worked out, McKinnon said.
Most of the agency's efforts on the North Slope roads project will be focused on the road east of Prudhoe, called the "Bullen Point" road. Patty Miller, a state DOT engineer working on the project, told the Alaska Support Industry Alliance Jan. 19 that her agency is soliciting proposals from engineering firms with environmental expertise to begin work on a federal environmental impact statement for the road.
Preliminary route reconnaissance for the road, done by CH2M-Hill, is now being reviewed by the transportation department.
Don Perrin, a member of the DNR's large-project permitting team, briefed members of the Alliance with Miller, noting that the road planning efforts would facilitate the state's work in reviewing a right-of-way for a gas pipeline to the Point Thomson field, where about 8 trillion cubic feet of gas has been discovered.
Gas from Point Thomson will be needed to supply a large-diameter gas pipeline now proposed to be built from the North Slope, Perrin said.
