inside today a4 firms report major oil find on north slope · 2017-03-10 · 30 years. the find on...
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Fri., March 10 and Sat., March 11
7:30pm • At the Big DipperIce Dogs vs Minnesota Magicians
ICE DOG HOCKEY
Come watch the Dogs battle for a playoff spot!
The Fastest Game in town...
Friday sponsored by:Renewable Energy SystemsSaturday sponsored by:Gene’s Chrysler
Tickets available at Eielson Community Center, Ft. Wainwright- ASYMCA, Play It Again Sports, Sport King, Fairbanks
Community Museum, Gene’s Chrysler
F12516906
SOURDOUGH JACK:
“I could stop one kind of pollution by just not talking.”
The weather.
Today: Partly sunny
with a slight chance
of snow. Highs in the
teens. Tonight: Most-
ly cloudy. Lows zero
to 15 below.
High today .............. 14
Low tonight ............ -9
WEATHER » A5
GOODMORNING
Classified » C1-4 | Comics » C6 | Dear Abby » C5 | Faith » B3 | Markets » B4 | Obituaries » A3 | Opinion » A6 INSIDE
• • •
Economic summit participants address housing for inlux of Air Force personnel. » A4Inside Today
PREP HOOPSHigh schools begin
conference tourneys
SPORTS
Page D1
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This information is provided
by aurora forecasters at
the Geophysical Institute
at the University of Alaska
Fairbanks. For more infor-
mation about the aurora,
visit http://www.gi.alaska.
edu/AuroraForecast
One dollar newsminer.comFRIDAY, MARCH 10, 2017
T H E V O I C E O F I N T E R I O R A L A S K A
Auroral activity will
be moderate. Weather
permitting, moderate
displays will be visible
overhead from Utqiagvik
to as far south as Talk-
eetna and visible low on
the horizon as far south
as Bethel, Soldotna and
southeast Alaska.
Firms report major oil find on North SlopeBy Matt BuxtonMBUXTON
@NEWSMINER.COM
Spanish oil compa-ny Repsol and explor-er Armstrong Energy announced Thursday the discovery of what they said was the biggest onshore oil discovery the United States has seen in 30 years.
The find on state oil leases in the Nanushuk play on the North Slope
could hold as much as 1.2 billion barrels of recov-erable light oil, according to a Repsol news release.
The finds came after this winter’s drilling of Horseshoe wells east of the Colv i l le Riv-er and about 20 miles south from the Beau-fort Sea coast. The well is an extension from the existing Pikka unit on the coast that the two had been exploring.
Repsol has been active-
ly exploring in Alaska since 2008 and began drilling with Armstrong in 2011.
The announcement notes that the first pro-duction from the find could make its way into the trans-Alaska oil pipe-line system in 2021, with a rate near 120,000 bar-rels of oil per day.
Throughput in the pipeline system has been on a long decline but saw an uptick in 2016 to
average about 517,000 barrels of oil per day. The greates t throughput occurred Jan. 14, 1988, when 2,145,297 barrels moved through the pipe-line.
The announcement was met with broadly positive reactions from Alaska’s elected officials.
“ I a p p l a u d t h e announcement by Rep-sol and its partner, Arm-strong, on their Horse-shoe wells discovery,”
Gov. Bill Walker said in a statement. “This is also great news for the state of Alaska, which yielded $ 17 m i l l i o n i n o u r December lease sales.”
The issue announce-ment will factor into the legislative debate on the state’s oil tax credit system, which has been criticized for costing the state too much with little guarantee of production.
Members of the bipar-tisan majority in the
House also welcomed the announcement but stressed that it makes it even more important for the state to rework the tax credit system.
“These new oil dis-coveries also have the potential to devastate the budget if we contin-ue a system that requires the state of Alaska to pay billions of dollars in costs with no assurances
OIL » A3
Borough debates smoke pollution measureBy Amanda [email protected]
The assembly spent late
Thursday picking apart an ordinance aimed at making stricter rules for burning wood and coal in the Fair-banks North Star Borough.
Assembly members took up numerous amendments to borough Mayor Karl Kas-sel’s ordinance, but the panel did not get to a final vote by press time.
Ordinance 2017-18 is Kas-sel’s latest attempt at com-batting the ongoing problem of smoke pollution.
The measure removes exemptions from wood- burning rules and lowers the threshold for when the bor-ough calls air quality alerts, which trigger burn bans.
A reclassification of the borough from a “moderate” to a “serious” smoke pollu-tion nonattainment area by the federal Environmental Protection Agency is pend-ing, and the municipality has been put on notice to do more about the problem.
The measure drew criti-cism from most of the res-idents — fewer than 10 — who testified.
The main complaint was that it is too punitive.
US ARMY ALASKA WINTER GAMES
Above: Soldiers try to keep their balance while being
pulled by a track rig during the skijoring competition as Fort Wainwright hosts
the annual U.S. Army Alaska Winter Games
on Thursday morning, Battalions from Fort
Wainwright and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage are competing
in this year’s games, which include downhill ski
racing, live-fire biathlon, stress shooting, Arctic tent erection and cold-weather
casualty aid.
Soldiers strap their bunny boots into ski bindings, above, and pound stakes into the frozen ground while setting up a 10-person tent, left.ERIC ENGMAN/
NEWS-MINER PHOTOS
Assembly rebuffs change to zoning buffers, relaxes tax-break rulesBy Amanda BohmanABOHMAN
@NEWSMINER.COM
The assembly rejected a proposal to increase the buffer distance between marijuana businesses and technical and trade schools that draw minors.
Also on Thursday, the panel approved a revamped economic development tax break for the Fairbanks North Star Borough.
The marijuana propos-al was brought forward by Assemblymen Matt Coo-per and Lance Roberts.
They aimed to raise the buffer distance from 200 feet to 500 feet for techni-cal and trade schools that attract students 18 and younger.
T h e a s s e m b l y m e n wanted to put the buffer distance in line with what is in place for elementary,
middle and high schools.“We should be treating
K-12 program for stu-dents the same way we are treating schools,” Coo-per said.
Assemblyman Guy Sat-tley joined the sponsors in favoring the measure, but it failed in a 3-5 vote.
Every person who testi-fied about the ordinance — fewer than 10 — was against it.
Daniel Peters, who owns the marijuana retail store GoodSinse, said approval of the measure
ZONING » A3
POLLUTION » A5