The battle to tap into Alaska’s oil reserves has taken a new turn with the announcement that the state has given Exxon Mobil Corp. conditional permission to begin drilling in a North Slope oil field known as Point Thompson. The site is one of the largest undeveloped fields in the US and has been at the centre of a protracted battle between the state and the company. Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin attempted to revoke Exxon’s license to develop the site, accusing the company of ‘dragging their feet’. However, Exxon has now stated that it is ready to move on the project and develop over 400 potential related oil rig jobs as a result.
During the current economic crisis, any offer of mass employment by a major company is of interest to the government and Exxon have used this particular argument to encourage the state to grant them the licenses they need to begin exploration. The company argues at a recent administrative hearing that it could begin drilling before the end of the winter if the state gave it a license to build an ice road to move in a drilling platform to the site. In January the state complied, allowing Exxon to try and keep its promise of generating jobs, investment and ultimately revenue from the site.
The company has spent over $120million to prepare for drilling to begin and have had a policy of spending the money with Alaskan supply companies to keep the revenue within the state. They aim to spend a further $200million a year on the Point Thompson field, effectively creating hundreds of drilling jobs, oil rig jobs and other subsidiary occupations in a short period. Critics claim that the jobs will take longer to materialize, but the company maintains that the slow pace of development previously seen has now gone and that the project will move quickly to full production levels.
Exxon see the development of on and off-shore oil drilling fields as potentially creating as many as 160,000 new oil jobs and oil careers over the next few years and generating around $1.7trillion in federal, state and local government revenues. They are focusing their attention on the Alaskan oil fields and the Rockies as well as off-shore facilities. Their argument is that well-paid oil jobs will result from this expansion of operations as well as pumping funds back into the communities and paying for schools, libraries and the police. The company maintains that the oil industry will generate more jobs and in a shorter space of time than other renewable energy businesses.
The company still has to show that its Point Thompson field is a viable operation and has only weeks to prove to the state that progress is being made. They have to have drilling rig contracts signed and show authorization for expenditures for the project within a matter of days if they are to hold on to the two licenses granted and push for the other 29 that they have applied for. Point Thompson is estimated to hold trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of millions of barrels of oil. If the company is granted full exploration rights the site could maintain hundreds of oil drilling jobs, boosting the economy of the region and reducing the US reliance on non-domestic oil and gas supplies. In a time when jobs are becoming increasingly hard to find, the successful development of the Point Thompson field could provide stable employment for oil rig workers and drillers for years to come.
Tags: alaska oil drilling, exxon mobil corp, governor sarah palin, north slope oil, oil rig jobs