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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
July 2009

Vol. 14, No. 28 Week of July 12, 2009

BP in Alaska: Alaska heavy oil test yields positive results

A heavy oil production test program on the North Slope in August-September 2008 was an important step toward extracting vast deposits of heavy oil that lie above established fields such as Milne Point and Kuparuk.

Using the cold heavy oil production with sand (CHOPS) technology for the first time in Alaska, the test brought oil and sand to the surface reliably and sustainably.

Production at the Milne Point site to the west of Prudhoe Bay peaked at about 120 barrels a day of a sand/oil mixture before the test period ended Sept. 15. During the course of the test, about 700 barrels of heavy oil — API gravity 10 — was processed at Milne Point and shipped down the 800-mile-long trans-Alaska pipeline.

“Part of the test was to determine if the progressive cavity pump, driven from the surface, could pull sand and oil from the reservoir.” notes Eric West, BP Alaska’s manager of heavy oil. “This clearly worked, and the reservoir formation had characteristics that may sustain higher production rates as testing is resumed next summer.”

The Ugnu reservoir contains roughly 20 billion barrels of oil in place. BP’s reservoir scientists and engineers conservatively estimate that roughly 10 percent of that resource, or 2 billion barrels, could be recoverable — a world-class prize. But it’s as thick as molasses and doesn’t flow freely into wells like the lighter oils of the Prudhoe Bay, Endicott or Northstar fields.

“In the light oil business we try to keep the sand out of the wellbores,” says West. “The CHOPS method has the opposite intent. We intentionally produce sand into the wellbore, and with the sand comes the oil. As sand production continues, channels in the reservoir called ‘wormholes’ will form representing a multi fold increase in the surface area of the reservoir being contacted. At the surface, oil will be separated from the sand in heated tanks and will ultimately be processed by existing facilities and shipped down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

“Timing is everything on advancing and deploying this technology,” West adds. “After it’s separated from the sand, the oil is still too thick to flow down pipelines to the refineries. It must be mixed with lighter crudes which serve as a diluent. The use of light oil as a diluent creates a hard link between the existing light-oil business and the potential heavy-oil business. If we didn’t have an established light-oil business all around us it is unlikely that we could make heavy oil work on the North Slope.”

To draw cold, heavy oil, sand and water from 4,000 feet below the ground to the surface, a key piece of equipment called a progressive cavity pump is needed. The pump includes a long metal rod with cavities along its length. As the cavities are progressed up through the pump, sand and oil are pulled from the formation into the wellbore.

Grant Encelewski, heavy oil operations team lead, says the first phase of the CHOPS testing program requires an investment of about $70 million. It includes expanding S-Pad, designing and constructing a purpose-built, long-term test kit, and four new wells. The second phase, in 2009-10, will require an investment comparable to the first phase, and will include further expansion of S-pad, drilling, testing four more wells, and possibly adding more well test facilities.

The 20-person heavy oil team, or HOT, will grow with project success.

Viscous oil is currently under production on the North Slope at about 50,000 barrels per day, primarily from the Schrader Bluff Formation. About 100 million barrels of viscous oil have been produced to date. However, the large, heavy oil resource is colder and much thicker than viscous oil.

Commercial production of heavy oil in Alberta, Canada, comprises both cold and thermal recovery processes. Likewise, North Slope heavy oil development will likely involve both cold and thermal development techniques. BP Alaska is currently testing CHOPS in the field, but thermal field tests are on the drawing board. Thermal recovery involves introducing heat, such as steam or electrical heating.

“Most heavy oil technologies have required years to mature and prove,” adds Max Easley, BP Alaska’s senior vice president and business unit leader, Alaska Consolidated Team. “But we are aggressively pushing this resource to further underpin Alaska’s 50-year strategy. Heavy oil has and will continue to generate a lot of attention in Alaska and across the entire E&P segment and this first success is quite encouraging as we continue this effort.”

—Frank Baker






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