Endicott Island

Last updated March 30, 2019

Endicott Island is a 45-acre (18 ha) artificial island located in the U.S. state of Alaska, 2.5 miles (4 km) offshore and 15 miles (24 km) from Prudhoe Bay of the Beaufort Sea. Endicott Island was built in 1987 by Alaska Interstate Construction and is used by BP and Hilcorp Alaska for petroleum production.

An artificial island or man-made island is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure, to those that support entire communities and cities. Early artificial islands included floating structures in still waters, or wooden or megalithic structures erected in shallow waters.

In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are currently 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory and shares its sovereignty with the federal government. Due to this shared sovereignty, Americans are citizens both of the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons restricted by certain types of court orders. Four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names.

Alaska is a U.S. state in the northwest extremity of North America, just across the Bering Strait from Asia. The Canadian province of British Columbia and territory of Yukon border the state to the east and southeast. Its most extreme western part is Attu Island, and it has a maritime border with Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort seas—southern parts of the Arctic Ocean. The Pacific Ocean lies to the south and southwest. It is the largest U.S. state by area and the seventh largest subnational division in the world. In addition, it is the 3rd least populous and the most sparsely populated of the 50 United States; nevertheless, it is by far the most populous territory located mostly north of the 60th parallel in North America: its population—estimated at 738,432 by the United States Census Bureau in 2015— is more than quadruple the combined populations of Northern Canada and Greenland. Approximately half of Alaska's residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaska's economy is dominated by the fishing, natural gas, and oil industries, resources which it has in abundance. Military bases and tourism are also a significant part of the economy.

Endicott Island has a permanent causeway connecting it to the mainland, unlike Northstar Island which is too far out for any kind of causeway to be built.

Northstar Island is a 5-acre (20,000 m²) artificial island in the Beaufort Sea, 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and 6 miles (9.7 km) north of the Alaska coast. The island was created to develop the Northstar Oil Pool, which is located approximately 12,500 feet (3,800 m) below the seabed. The oil pool was discovered on January 30, 1984 by Royal Dutch Shell.

Endicott Island was the first continuously producing offshore oil field in the Arctic, producing around 20,000 barrels (3,200 m³) of oil per day. Approximately 423 million barrels (67,300,000 m³) had been produced as of March 2003. Processed oil is sent from Endicott Island through a 24-mile (39 km) pipeline to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and thence to Valdez, Alaska.^[1]

In 1998 and 1999, illegal waste dumping at Endicott Island resulted in combined fines of US$1,500,000 against BP and Doyon Drilling, with further settlements of $24,000,000. In September 1999, one of BP’s US subsidiaries, BP Exploration Alaska (BPXA), agreed to resolve charges related to the illegal dumping of hazardous wastes on the Alaska North Slope, for $22 million. The settlement included the maximum $500,000 criminal fine, $6.5 million in civil penalties, and BP’s establishment of a $15 million environmental management system at all of BP facilities in the US and Gulf of Mexico that are engaged in oil exploration, drilling or production.

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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its territories per the United States Constitution since 1792. In practice, the dollar is divided into 100 smaller cent (¢) units, but is occasionally divided into 1000 mills (₥) for accounting. The circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars.

The Alaska North Slope is the region of the U.S. state of Alaska located on the northern slope of the Brooks Range along the coast of two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Chukchi Sea being on the western side of Point Barrow, and the Beaufort Sea on the eastern. Washington Post

The charges stemmed from the 1993 to 1995 dumping of hazardous wastes on Endicott Island by BP’s contractor Doyon Drilling. The firm illegally discharged waste oil, paint thinner and other toxic and hazardous substances by injecting them down the outer rim, or annuli, of the oil wells. BPXA failed to report the illegal injections when it learned of the conduct, in violation of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.^[2]

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Atlantic Richfield Company is an American oil company with operations in the United States, Indonesia, the North Sea, the South China Sea, and Mexico. It has more than 1,300 gas stations in the western part of the United States, and recently five gas stations at northwestern Mexico. ARCO was formed by the merger of East Coast–based Atlantic Refining and California-based Richfield Oil Corporation in 1966. A merger in 1969 brought in Sinclair Oil Corporation. It became a subsidiary of UK-based BP plc in 2000 through its BP West Coast Products LLC (BPWCP) affiliate. On August 13, 2012, it was announced that Tesoro would purchase ARCO and its refinery for $2.5 billion. However, the deal came under fire due to increasing fuel prices. Many activists urged state and federal regulators to block the sale due to concerns that it would reduce competition and could lead to higher fuel prices at ARCO stations. On June 3, 2013, BP sold ARCO and the Carson Refinery to Tesoro for $2.5 billion. BP sold its Southern California terminals to Tesoro Logistics LP, including the Carson Storage Facility. BP will continue to own the ampm brand and sell it to Tesoro for Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada. BP exclusively licensed the ARCO rights from Tesoro for Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) includes the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems. It is commonly called the Alaska pipeline, trans-Alaska pipeline, or Alyeska pipeline,, but those terms technically apply only to the 800 miles (1,287 km) of the pipeline with the diameter of 48 inches (122 cm) that conveys oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, Alaska. The crude oil pipeline is privately owned by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.

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References

↑ North Slope Oil Fields, BP Archived 2012-03-31 at the Wayback Machine .
↑ "BP Exploration [Alaska] Pleads Guilty To Hazardous Substance Crime Will Pay $22 Million, Establish Nationwide Environmental Management System". United States Environmental Protection Agency. 23 September 1999. Retrieved 11 Jun 2010.

External links

"BP Exploration (Alaska) Pleads Guilty To Hazardous Substance Crime". U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1999-09-23. Retrieved 2006-06-18.
RTK.net report on Endicott Island
Prudhoe Bay, Alaska Aerial photos from the Prudhoe Bay area, July 2010

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government for environmental protection. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970 and it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the President and approved by Congress. The current Administrator is former Deputy Administrator Andrew R. Wheeler, who had been acting administrator since July 2018. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the Administrator is normally given cabinet rank.

Coordinates: 70°21′N147°57.5′W / 70.350°N 147.9583°W / 70.350; -147.9583

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[1] North Slope Oil Fields, BP Archived 2012-03-31 at the Wayback Machine .

[2] "BP Exploration [Alaska] Pleads Guilty To Hazardous Substance Crime Will Pay $22 Million, Establish Nationwide Environmental Management System". United States Environmental Protection Agency. 23 September 1999. Retrieved 11 Jun 2010.