Armstrong aims to prove the Slope is still ‘target rich<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\nIn October, Armstrong said it would begin a winter drilling operation to determine the extent of that formation. If that drill found oil 20 miles from the initial discovery, it would mean the formation was on the high end of those estimates.<\/p>\n
State petroleum geologist Paul Decker, in a statement provided by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, said \u201cthe new well results decrease the risk and increase the probability that the actual recoverable is somewhere in the upper end of the earlier range.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the announcement wasn\u2019t entirely unexpected, that didn\u2019t stop state and federal officials from hailing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is outstanding for Alaska,\u201d said Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage and chairwoman of the Senate Resources Committee, in a prepared statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that this announcement \u2014 with the state working together as a partner with Congress, the new administration, and the private sector \u2014 could usher in a new renaissance of economic growth and job creation in Alaska,\u201d said U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, by email.<\/p>\n
Gov. Bill Walker added similar words.<\/p>\n
In the Alaska Capitol, the announcement was viewed through a political lens. Members of the coalition majority that leads the Alaska House have proposed higher taxes and lower subsidies for the oil industry.<\/p>\n
Alaska has paid millions more in subsidies than it received in production taxes from the oil industry during recent years, though that trend is forecast to change starting in 2019.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage and co-chairman of the House Resources Committee, said the find has \u201cthe potential to devastate the budget if we continue a system that requires the state of Alaska to pay billions of dollars in costs with no assurances of future revenue, especially at low oil prices.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the opposite side, members of the Republican House minority said the find proves the state\u2019s subsidy system, installed by Senate Bill 21 in 2013, works and should not be changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dominant message we\u2019re hearing from Alaskans during public testimony is do not change the current system,\u201d said Rep. David Talerico, R-Healy.<\/p>\n
House Bill 111, the oil and gas production tax hike, is in the House Resources Committee.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com or call 419-7732.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A huge new oil find on the North Slope could send as much as 120,000 new barrels of oil per day through the trans-Alaska Pipeline System within five years. In a statement Thursday, Spanish oil firm Repsol called the discovery near the Colville River the biggest new conventional oil field ashore in the United States […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-oil-and-gas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7999"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}