Overview
Socioeconomic Impacts of Oil and Gas Projects in Frontier OCS Planning Areas
Project Lead: Leah Cuyno, Don Schug
The primary goal of the study is to provide a set of consistent, enduring narrative descriptions of the patterns of socioeconomic effects likely to result from development in each of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) frontier OCS planning areas to help analysts, decision makers, and stakeholders understand the implications of oil and gas activities under wide-ranging conditions. The basic effects and patterns described in the narratives are based on a representative project (or small set of linked projects) that reflects a feasible initial pattern of development for each planning area, given estimated resource endowment and operating environment.
Specifically, the narratives provide the following:
- high-level explanations of how oil and gas resources could be developed including the nature and geographic distributions of the primary and supporting activities associated with each stage of the “representative” initial oil and gas project(s)
- baseline information about enduring characteristics of the planning areas and nearby communities (including geology, geography, oil and gas resources, existing infrastructure, and socioeconomic conditions) that will have the greatest effect on development patterns and socioeconomic consequences
- identification of specific onshore analysis areas likely to experience noticeable effects considering local baseline data
- enduring descriptions of the nature, level, and geographic and temporal distribution of the socioeconomic consequences likely to result from the primary and secondary/supporting activities, including– estimated ranges of employment, labor income, and revenues
Northern Economics led the research, analysis, and preparation of the narratives for the following Alaska OCS frontier areas: 1) Gulf of Alaska, 2) Cook Inlet, 3) Beaufort Sea, 4) Chukchi Sea, 5) Less Prospective areas (Hope Basin, Norton Basin, St. Matthew-Hall, Shumagin, North Aleutian Basin, Kodiak), and 6) Remote OCS areas (Navarin Basin, Aleutian Basin, St. George Basin, Bowers Basin, and Aleutian Arc).