PURPOSE: The applicant, Armstrong Energy, LLC's, stated purpose is to safely produce commercial quantities of liquid hydrocarbons in Armstrong Energy, LLC’s State of Alaska oil and gas leasehold by operating from a site east of the Colville River Delta; to process hydrocarbons on or near the drill sites; and to transport sales-quality oil through a new export pipeline to the Kuparuk sales oil pipeline, and then to TAPS. A secondary purpose of the Project is to further delineate geological features and hydrocarbon accumulations in Armstrong's leasehold utilizing the proposed infrastructure.
LOCATION: The Project would be located in the North Slope Borough (NSB) in the Pikka Unit between Kuparuk and the Colville River Unit development (Alpine). The Project would extend west from existing Kuparuk infrastructure into an area with recent exploration and development activity, (e.g., Oooguruk and Nuna projects to the northeast and Mustang to the southeast), to the East Channel of the Colville River. The community of Nuiqsut, the closest village to the Project, is located on the west side of the Colville River, and would be approximately 6.5 miles southwest of the nearest Project feature.
PROPOSED WORK: Armstrong Energy, LLC proposes to drill wells and construct and operate infrastructure and facilities to produce and transport sales-quality oil to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). Project components include: the Nanushuk Pad (composed of DS1 and central processing facility), two standalone gravel drill sites (DS2 and DS3), an operations center, a tie-in pad, infield pipelines on vertical support members (VSMs), the Nanushuk Pipeline on VSMs, gravel infield roads, a gravel access road, road bridges at the Miluveach and Kachemach Rivers, and a potable water intake system. Armstrong proposes placement of 2,756,520 cubic yards (cy) of clean fill material into 271.6 acres of waters of the U.S. including wetlands to construct the Project. The Project also includes temporary discharges to 5.8 acres of jurisdictional waters of the U.S., (Harrison Bay of the Beaufort Sea), for screeding activities in front of the existing Oliktok Dock and trenching for power and fiber optic cables at pipeline-road crossings. See Project Description for specific volumes and acreage of fill for project components. All work would be performed in accordance with the Nanushuk Development Project, USACE Permit Application Figure Set, (sheets 1-53), dated June 16 and July 5, 2017. Additional information can also be found in the Nanushuk Development Project, Project Description, (Pages 1-26, July 2017). All supplemental information listed above is available at http://www.poa.usace.army.mil/Missions/Regulatory/Public-Notices/.
Comments: Comments can be submitted via the U.S. Postal Service to: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, CEPOA-RD, Ms. Ellen Lyons, 2175 University Avenue, Suite 201E, Alaska 99709-4927 or also via email at: Ellen.H.Lyons@usace.army.mil. We request that you include with your comments: (1) Your name, address, and affiliation (if any); (2) Be as specific as possible when stating your concern or comment and whether it is specific to the Draft EIS, the permit application or both; and (3) Provide any background documents to support your comments, as necessary.
POA-2015-25, Colville River_PN2
POA-2015-25, Colville River_PROJECT DESCRIPTION
POA-2015-25, Colville River_PLANS
POA-2015-25, Colville River_MITIGATION STATEMENT