De-icing technology is a necessity when working in parts of the Arctic where ocean water splashing aboard rigs immediately transforms into ice.

So are billion-dollar icebreakers and experienced operators who know how to work in freezing temperatures, high altitudes and other brutal weather conditions without compromising safety.

Although melting sea ice has created an opportunity for more oil and gas exploration in the Arctic, lower commodity prices have slowed or halted some companies able to afford high-dollar E&P projects from pursuing the region’s hydrocarbons offshore. Shell pulled out of the Chukchi Sea for the foreseeable future after its search failed to find enough crude following a series of setbacks, while Statoil postponed its Johan Castberg project in the Barents Sea.

Good news is that technology is available today to develop offshore oil and gas in the U.S. Arctic when companies are ready; however, additional research could validate technology that has been used in other areas and offer improvements, according to a 600-page report on the potential of the U.S. Arctic conducted by the National Petroleum Council (NPC).

Jed Hamilton, the senior Arctic consultant for ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co., who worked on the report, spoke about the findings Nov. 13 during an event at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

Not many major technological breakthroughs are needed to develop the U.S. Arctic, but “there are certainly research opportunities and technology will continue to advance incrementally,” Hamilton said, noting there is room for improvement in safety, environmental impact, cost and performance.

Three factors, in particular, dictate the type of technology needed: ice conditions, water depth and the length of the open water season, he added.

“Drilling rigs that rest on the seafloor have a maximum usable depth of about 100 meters in ice; deeper water requires floating rigs,” as explained in the report. “Exploration can be carried out in waters with a short ice-free season using floating drilling rigs in waters deeper than about 20 meters, but development and production generally requires year-round operation to be economic, which means using facilities that rest on the seafloor and are resistant to ice forces in ice-prone areas.”

Given that most of the U.S. Arctic resources are in water depths of less than 100 m, exploration as well as development and production are technically feasible using conventional bottom-founded drilling systems, he said, and the technology has been field proven already.

The Hibernia gravity base structure offshore Newfoundland, Canada, is built to withstand the impact of a 1 million ton iceberg and sea ice. The BP-operated Northstar Unit on a manmade island northwest of Prudhoe Bay shows how operators can cope with icy conditions in shallow-water nearshore. A pipeline buried 7 to 11 feet below the seafloor to avoid ice impact connects the unit to onshore processing facilities via a pipeline with walls that are three times as thick of typical onshore North Slope pipes, according to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Subsea systems that lie on the seafloor also point to existing technology aimed at avoiding ice and icebergs collisions.

But when it comes to operating in open water for more than two months at any water depth where multiyear ice with embedded icebergs and ice islands exist, the sector could benefit from increased ice management capability, new technology or improvements to existing floating, ice management and subsea technology. The same is true for operations farther offshore and in deeper water.

The NPC’s 92 recommendations pointed to needs for technologies to safely extend the drilling season and improve infrastructure as well as better policy coordination and leadership. But focus was heavy on environmental stewardship, particularly oil spill prevention.

“The emphasis is on the prevention side because that is where most opportunities are to protect the environment,” Hamilton said. “However, no one is going to claim they can be 100 percent certain that these measures will prevent them from having a loss of containment event and that’s where the technology comes in.”

Learning from the Macondo spill in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Hamilton said new technology suitable for arctic conditions include subsea installation devices, basically preinstalled BOPs that go on the seafloor. The devices operate independently and do not require the functions of a drilling rig to close a well if there is a loss of containment event.

But technology is only one aspect of operating in Arctic. While melting ice creates a chance for oil and gas companies to explore, it also opens new shipping lanes and perhaps the need for improved infrastructure along with the probability of new, less experienced operators working in environments in which they are not accustomed.

“Technology is not enough,” Hamilton said of arctic projects. “It has to be economically viable and you must have the confidence of the public,” showing resources can be tapped in a prudent way.

The Arctic could hold 90 Bbbl of crude oil and the 50 Tcm (1,669 Tcf) of natural gas, according to the US Geological Survey. The resources equate to about 22% of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources. In terms of oil, Arctic Alaska has the most to offer with technically recoverable conventional resources at an estimated 30 Bbbl, while the West Siberian basin—among the largest basins in the world at more than 2.2 million sq km—could hold an estimated 20 Tcm (652 Tcf) of natural gas.

Velda Addison can be reached at vaddison@hartenergy.com.