Anchorage Daily News

Exxon Mobil Corp. managers say the company has completed an operation to barge equipment and supplies to the remote Point Thomson oil and gas field in preparation for a planned drilling campaign this winter.

And they say they're hopeful a mediator can help the company and state officials settle a court fight for control of the North Slope field.

State officials are trying to take away oil company leases at Point Thomson, arguing Exxon has failed to develop the field decades after oil and gas were discovered.

Exxon managers now say they're ready to drill and have proposed a $1.3 billion development project. But state officials have said Exxon's plan is inadequate.

In court filings this month, state lawyers said they are "not opposed to the concept of settlement discussions," and Superior Court Judge Sharon Gleason has given the two sides until Oct. 15 to give a status report.

Meantime, Exxon intends to push on with preparations for drilling in February, and recently used tugs and barges traveling through the Beaufort Sea to land heavy equipment and supplies on the beach at Point Thomson, which is east of Prudhoe Bay next to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The plan is to construct a 60-mile ice road for bringing in a drilling rig that's undergoing a $20 million retrofit, said Craig Haymes, Exxon's Alaska production manager.

Because the oil and gas at Point Thomson is under extraordinarily high pressure, the rig and the wells it punches must be very robust by North Slope standards, Haymes said. That will make them much more expensive.

Crowley Maritime Corp. barged in heavy equipment, fuel and water tanks, a camp for housing workers, and other equipment and supplies to an old gravel drilling pad, Haymes said.

The gear will be used to prepare the pad and build the ice road as well as a landing strip for aircraft, he said.

Exxon obtained state and federal permits to stage the equipment, and the company is hopeful it will get permission to drill despite the court dispute, Haymes said.

"It's in everybody's interest to drill wells," he said.

Point Thomson is considered important for the proposed natural gas pipeline. It holds an estimated 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- about a quarter of the Slope's known 35 trillion cubic feet. It also holds several hundred million barrels of crude oil.

Find Wesley Loy online at adn.com/contact/wloy or call 257-4590.

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