NEWS BULLETIN

April 10, 2003 --- Vol. 9, No. 38April 2003

ANS West Coast fiscal year 2003 price projection up

The Alaska Department of Revenue is now projecting Alaska North Slope crude oil delivered to the West Coast to average $28.14 a barrel for fiscal year 2003, up from the fall Revenue forecast of $25.94 a barrel for FY 2003.

Commissioner of Revenue Bill Corbus presented the departments spring 2003 forecast this morning. He said the price increase is due to price volatility caused by the Iraq war and problems with production from not just Iraq, but also Venezuela and Nigeria. Corbus said the department expects production from all three countries to return to past levels. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, he said, will then face the challenge of preventing a worldwide oil glut.

The department is projecting an ANS West Coast price of $25.28 a barrel for FY 2004 and $21.67 for FY 2005. For 2006-10, he said, the department believes that the price will be about $22 a barrel, the bottom of the $22-$28 per barrel OPEC range.

ANS production is expected to average just under a million barrels a day for FY 2003 and to remain at about that level through 2010, gradually rising to just a little more than a million barrels a day, virtually the same as the fall 2002 forecast.

He noted that by 2010 the department expects 21 percent of production to come from new fields — some of those already discovered, and some not yet discovered. He said the state expects the exploration program to continue and new fields to be discovered.


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