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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
May 2011

Vol. 16, No. 19 Week of May 08, 2011

April ANS production level with March

Alaska North Slope fields mix of upticks, downticks for April; biggest per-barrel drop from Kuparuk River field, down 3,404 bpd

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Alaska North Slope crude oil production averaged 634,028 barrels per day in April, down slightly from March’s average of 635,354 bpd and down some 10,000 bpd from April of 2010, when the daily production average was 644,509 barrels. The bulk of the year-over-year decrease came from the Alpine field, which produced 99,144 bpd in April 2010 compared to 82,401 bpd this April.

The small decrease between this March and April, 0.21 percent, came from the Kuparuk River field, down 2.46 percent or 3,404 bpd, the Endicott field, down 3.97 percent or 537 bpd and the Northstar field, down 11.89 percent or 2,096 bpd.

Northstar, operated by BP Exploration (Alaska), had two days when production dropped substantially, April 13 when the field produced only 1,121 barrels and April 14 when it produced only 3,293 barrels. Most days in April Northstar production was in the 16,000-17,000 bpd range, a drop from March when most days the field produced in the 17,000-18,000 bpd range. Northstar averaged 15,525 bpd in April, compared to 17,621 bpd in March.

The BP-operated Endicott field, which includes production from Badami, averaged 13,001 bpd in April, down from an average of 13,538 bpd in March.

Except where noted, volumes are from the Alaska Department of Revenue’s Tax Division, which tracks oil production by major production centers and provides daily production and monthly averages.

Production is broken out for all fields and pools by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and it is the only source of production data for some fields, including Badami, which is amalgamated with Endicott in Revenue’s figures.

In March, the most recent month for which the commission provides data, Badami produced 43,287 barrels, an average of 1,398 bpd for the month. Commission data show that Endicott production averaged 10,712 bpd in March, so in that month about 8.7 percent of the production moving through Endicott into the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was from Badami.

The ConocoPhillips Alaska-operated Kuparuk River field averaged 135,192 bpd in April, down from 138,596 bpd in March. Kuparuk production includes Tabasco, Tarn, Meltwater and West Sak, along with production from the Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska-operated Oooguruk field and the Eni Petroleum-operated Nikaitchuq field. AOGCC figures for Oooguruk show the field producing 226,253 barrels in March, or 7,298 bpd, and Nikaitchuq, which came online in early February, producing 193,251 barrels or 6,234 bpd.

Uptick at Prudhoe

The BP-operated Prudhoe Bay field averaged 330,071 bpd in April, up 0.86 percent from a March average of 327,257 bpd. Prudhoe production includes Aurora, Borealis, Midnight Sun, Orion and Polaris.

The ConocoPhillips-operated Alpine field averaged 82,401 bpd in April, up 2 percent from a March average of 80,734 bpd. Alpine production includes Fiord, Nanuq and Qannik.

BP-operated Lisburne averaged 32,570 bpd in April, up 0.48 percent from a March average of 32,416. Lisburne includes production from Point McIntyre and Niakuk.

BP’s Milne Point field averaged 25,268 bpd in April, up 0.3 percent from a March average of 25,192 bpd.

The temperature at Pump Station 1 on the North Slope averaged 2.15 degrees Fahrenheit in April, compared to minus 4.77 F in March.

In Cook Inlet, crude oil production averaged 6,448 bpd in April, down 42.75 percent from a March average of 11,262 bpd. AOGCC figures show that the majority of that March production, some 8,440 bpd, was from three fields, two operated by Chevron subsidiary Union Oil Company of California — Granite Point and McArthur River — and Middle Ground Shoal operated by ExxonMobil subsidiary XTO.

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.






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