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Vol. 22, No. 28 Week of July 09, 2017
Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry

GPMA sees production bump

BP pegs future hopes for 6 fields on results of North Prudhoe survey

Eric Lidji

For Petroleum News

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. is reporting a slight increase in liquids production from the six fields in the Greater Point McIntyre Area of the Prudhoe Bay unit on the North Slope.

The local subsidiary of the international British major produced some 9.218 million barrels of crude oil, condensate and natural gas liquids from the six fields in the year ending March 31, 2017, up from approximately 8.745 million barrels in the year prior, according to a plan of development submitted to state authorities in mid-June.

The company reported increases at three of the four active fields in the region: Lisburne, Niakuk and Raven. The largest of the fields, Point McIntyre, saw a noteworthy decline. The North Prudhoe Bay and West Beach fields have been offline for year and remain so.

The future of the Greater Point McIntyre Area continues to reside in the North Prudhoe seismic survey conducted in 2014 and 2015 over the northern portion of the unit. The company completed the survey in April 2015 and completed a stage of the processing in September 2016. The results of the survey could determine development opportunities.

BP files three plans of development each year for the Prudhoe Bay unit - one for the Initial Participating Areas early in the year, one for the Greater Point McIntyre Area in the middle of the year and one for the Western Satellites toward the end of the year.

Point McIntyre

The Point McIntyre field saw a decline during the year.

For the year ending March 31, the Point McIntyre field delivered 4.5 million barrels of liquids to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, or 12,400 barrels per day, down from 5.64 million total barrels or 15,410 bpd the year prior. Point McIntyre also produced 51.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas, down from 62.5 billion cubic feet the year prior.

BP reported improved operations from the restoration of a Point McIntyre pipeline during the year. The 36-inch pipeline moved production to Gathering Center 1 until November 2011, when the company removed it from operation over concerns about external corrosion. In October 2016, the company completed a project to smart pig more than 8 miles of the 10-mile pipeline - the remaining 1.8 miles are unusable due to “cathodic protection issues” - allowing all production to be delivered to Gathering Center 1, rather than split between Gathering Center 1 and the Lisburne Production Center.

The company expects the change to improve operations and production at the Point McIntyre field. The company is also expecting benefits from the North Prudhoe seismic survey.

Lisburne

The Lisburne field experienced the largest production increase by volume.

For the year ending March 31, Lisburne delivered 3.9 million barrels of liquids to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, or 10,700 bpd, up from 2.1 million barrels or 5,800 bpd during the year prior. Lisburne also produced 68.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas during the reporting year, up from 42.9 billion cubic feet in the year prior.

During the year, BP drilled and completed two wells - L1-13 and L5-12A - and performed 18 rate-adding workover projects at 17 existing wells. The company also made its Lisburne Gas Cap Water Injection Project permanent in late January 2017, after the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission approved the continuation of the project.

This coming year, BP plans to drill one Lisburne well - L3-25 - and is considering several locations for potential wells in the future, based on recent drilling results.

Raven

The Raven field experienced the largest production increase by percentage.

For the year ending March 31, the Raven field delivered 340,000 barrels of oil to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, or 940 bpd, up from 60,000 total barrels or 130 bpd during the year prior. Raven also produced 85 million cubic feet of natural gas during the reporting year, up from 73 million cubic feet the year prior.

During the past year, BP drilled the NK-38B sidetrack of the existing NK-38A sidetrack into an unswept portion of the Ivishak reservoir at Raven. The company returned the NK-65A well to injection. The company drilled the NK-14B well in March. The purpose of the new well is to delineate the outer boundaries of the Ravel oil pool.

For the coming year, BP is planning to drill the NK-15A injection well to target the South Fault Block at the field, at which point the existing NK-65A well would be converted to a producer from the Sag River formation “to recover remaining resource in that area.”

Niakuk

For the year ending March 31, the Niakuk field delivered 478,000 barrels of oil to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, or 1,300 bpd, up from 405,000 barrels of oil or 1,110 bpd during the year prior. The field also produced 800 million cubic feet of natural gas during the reporting year, equal to gas production from the year prior.

BP performed two non-rig workover projects at the Niakuk field during the year - on the NK-42 and NK-09 wells. The company also collected oil samples from the NK-43 well in June and December 2016 “for geochemical analysis to confirm production allocation splits between the Sag River and Kuparuk reservoirs. The analyses showed that 83-95 percent of oil production in NK-43 is from the Kuparuk,” according to the company.

BP said that potential drilling targets are “continually being evaluated” at Niakuk and that some future opportunities depended on the results of the North Prudhoe seismic survey.

North Prudhoe and West Beach

The North Prudhoe Bay and West Beach field remain off-line.

BP shut-in the WB-03 well at North Prudhoe Bay in February 2000 over safety concerns arising from continued proppant production from an earlier fracture stimulation.

In plans of development over the past few years, BP has said that the results of the North Prudhoe seismic survey from 2014 and 2015 could help reduce the risk of attempting to revive the dormant field. In the most recent plan, BP noted, “Interpretation of the data is currently being prioritized across the Prudhoe Bay Unit. Interpretation will focus on improving the structure mapping over the field and an understanding of the subsurface areas of interest (Kuparuk, Sag, Ivishak, Lisburne, and Alapah intervals).”

The West Beach field will remain off-line pending a smart pig assessment on a key pipeline at the field. The maintenance project, though, is pending technical assessments.

Those assessments could also be “improved” by the North Prudhoe seismic survey.



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