Even though oil prices are hovering around $30.00 a barrel BlueCrest plans to begin producing from its new Anchor Point on shore facility this spring, according to Larry Burgess HSE manager for company. At a well-attended joint Kenai/Soldotna Chamber of Commerce meeting at the Kenai Visitor & Cultural Center last week Burgess talked about the construction of the facility and changes that have been made to make it more neighborhood friendly. When faced with the need of some 10,000 gallons of water a day BlueCrest decided not to drill water wells on site, “We got feedback from the direct neighbors, the nearest of which is only about 100 yards away and that feedback had merit, that the amount of water necessary might negatively impact the aquafer from which they draw their water and there was that potential. So to ease that fear we decided not to drill water wells at all and will be having all of our water hauled in from Homer. Even though it will be more expensive it was the right thing to do,” he said. Additionally, BlueCrest has taken measures to mitigate noise at light pollution at the pad, “One of the most noticeable things is the 14 foot tall berm we built around the entire pad which will keep our neighbors from having to see all the equipment and work activity that will be going on. Our generators are micro-turbans which at full operating capacity at the exhaust port operate at about 70 decibel’s which is like a normal speaking conversation. Last week I parked about 30 yards away when they were in full operating mode and it was a struggle to even hear them. Also we have some large compressors out there that sit outside and are fed by large diesel Cat engines and at great expense we installed hospital grade silencers on the engines which makes them very quiet and difficult to hear. Then for light mitigation on the entire pad including the drilling rig we installed LED directional lighting that can be focused downward in a specific direction and will not light up the sky or create light pollution and of course is better for the environment to operate these lights because they don’t use near as much energy to run them as standard bulbs,” said Burgess.
The low price of oil will not affect investment in the project until production begins and BlueCrest starts selling oil, “We are doing very well with our budget at this time and not selling oil the low price of oil won’t have impact on the project until future operation costs and we’ll have to keep an eye on that a few months from now when our production begins,” said Burgess. A first oil celebration will most likely be planned in the spring but no details are available at this point he said.
