April ANS production down 5% from March

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Alaska North Slope crude oil production averaged 644,509 barrels per day in April, down 5.05 percent from a March average of 678,810 bpd.

Production figures, from the Alaska Department of Revenue, show the biggest per-barrel decline at the BP Exploration (Alaska)-operated Prudhoe Bay field, which averaged 315,186 bpd in April, down 10.6 percent from a March average of 352,571 bpd, an average drop of 37,385 bpd per day.

Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., operator of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, said on its website that it was at 100 percent reliability in April, and that there were no prorations during the month which impacted reliability.

While production from Prudhoe began the month at 315,443 bpd and dropped as low as 269,293 bpd on April 5, production was above 340,000 bpd at the end of the month. Production at Prudhoe Bay includes satellite production at Aurora, Borealis, Midnight Sun, Orion and Polaris.

The largest percentage drop was at Northstar, where the field was offline April 16-20, with zero production on those days. Production was down 23.4 percent at the BP-operated field, which averaged 15,558 bpd in April, down from 20,298 bpd in March.

BP spokesman Steve Rinehart told Petroleum News in an e-mail that a pipe was being repaired at Northstar and because of the pipe’s location the plant had to be taken offline. After the fix was made the plant was restarted.

Lisburne also down

The BP-operated Endicott field averaged 13,128 bpd in April, down 0.6 percent from a March average of 13,201 bpd.

The largest April-over-March increase was at the ConocoPhillips Alaska-operated Alpine field, which averaged 99,144 bpd in April, up 9.58 percent from a March average of 90,480 bpd. Alpine production includes satellite production from Fiord, Nanuq and Qannik.

BP’s Milne Point field averaged 29,722 bpd in April, up 3.27 percent from a March average of 28,781 bpd.

The ConocoPhillips-operated Kuparuk River field averaged 140,491 bpd in April, up 0.4 percent from a March average of 139,940 bpd. Kuparuk includes production from Tabasco, Tarn, Meltwater and West Sak, as well as from the Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska-operated Oooguruk field. The latest figures available for Oooguruk are February numbers from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which show Oooguruk producing 264,689 barrels for the month, a daily average of 9,453 barrels.

The temperature at Pump Station 1 on the North Slope averaged 14.9 degrees Fahrenheit in April, compared to minus 9.39 degrees F in March.

Cook Inlet production averaged 10,306 bpd in April, up 14.69 percent from an average of 8,986 bpd in March.

ANS crude oil production peaked in 1988 at 2.1 million bpd; Cook Inlet crude oil production peaked in 1970 at more than 227,000 bpd.