Oliktok Pipeline again transporting NGLs

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Oliktok Pipeline Co. has notified the Regulatory Commission of Alaska that on Sept. 23 it recommenced moving natural gas liquids on its pipeline.

The company is authorized to provide both natural gas and NGL transportation service. A temporary suspension of service on the line was approved in 2017 because the company had no tenders of natural gas or NGLs.

This April the company requested authorization to convert the Oliktok Pipeline from natural gas to NGL service. The line is a 16-inch 28-mile pipeline originating near Pump Station 1 on the North Slope and terminating at Kuparuk River unit Central Processing Facility 1. It began service in 1981 as the original crude line from Kuparuk to Pump Station 1; it was converted to natural gas service in the mid-1980s after a larger crude oil was built, then idled until 1995 when it began carrying NGLs. It was converted to fuel gas service in late 2014; those shipments ceased on Jan. 1, 2017, and the line was placed into suspended operations indefinitely.

Shippers then requested a return to NGL service and the line was shutdown to allow construction activities required for a return to NGL service by August, with shipments from the Prudhoe Bay unit to the Kuparuk River unit for enhanced oil recovery use.

ConocoPhillips owns Oliktok Pipeline Co. and managed the conversion work.

RCA said in August that applications for approval of connection agreements for the line had been accepted as complete.

In a Sept. 26 filing with RCA, Oliktok said it had recommenced transportation of NGLs on Sept. 23. It noted in that filing that shippers had indicated in approximately July of 2017 an interest in tendering NGLs for transportation as early as August 2018. Oliktok said it sought approval of new rules for the transportation of natural gas and NGLs and approval of rates for NGL transportation on July 17, 2018, with the tariff provisions approved by RCA effective Aug. 21.

- KRISTEN NELSON