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Alphabet soup in western Prudhoe Bay BP’s summer plans to expand Z Pad also mean expansion at V Pad to support new pigging facilities and three future pipelines Eric Lidji Petroleum News
The tons of gravel BP plans to bring to western Prudhoe Bay in the coming months are headed for Z Pad, but the company will also truck some of it to the nearby V Pad in order to prepare a future construction project connecting the two drill sites.
The work planned for V Pad expands the scope of a summer program geared toward developing heavier resources in the western parts of Prudhoe Bay.
The wide-ranging, expensive and long-term Western Region Development Program is aimed at developing viscous oil fields, particularly Aurora, Borealis, Orion and Polaris, as well as light oil in the region.
The newest thrust of the program revolves around expanding Z Pad to prepare for a new gas partial processing plant, which would remove some of the gas from the “three-phase” oil-gas-water mixture coming out of the ground at Z, W, L and V Pads.
Removing the gas makes the remaining fluids easier to move through pipelines, but more importantly gives BP something to inject back into the reservoir to help coax the viscous oil below up to the surface.
V Pad sits three miles northwest of Z Pad, connected by a network of roads tucked against the southwestern edge of the Prudhoe Bay Unit.
Work would add three new pipelines BP began building V Pad at the start of the decade and finished work in March 2002. As part of earlier projects associated with the Western Region Development Program, BP used the new pad, and its nearby cousin L Pad, to tap the viscous Borealis reservoir and later Orion.
The 120-foot by 200-foot gravel expansion at V Pad this summer would support two new pigging facilities. Those facilities would service three new associated pipelines: a 24-inch production line, a 12-inch produced water injection line and an eight-inch lift gas line.
The pipelines are designed to prevent possible bottlenecks in the movement of fluids around the region. Some of these lines will flow to Z Pad while others flow to V Pad.
Depending on permitting timelines, BP expects to lay down gravel at both Z Pad and V Pad by late July and finish up at both sites by October.
The company hopes to start work on the vertical support members for the pipelines and foundations work for the pigging facilities in May 2009 with pipeline construction in the first quarter of 2010 and facility construction in the second or third quarter of that year.
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