Reading about oil and gas production is not nearly as exciting as reading about oil and gas exploration, but the effort and investment that goes into production far exceeds that of exploration.
This year Petroleum News is publishing The Producers in the place of our usual annual magazine, The Explorers.
But next year, in 2014, both magazines will be published.
The articles that follow tell an impressive story of Alaska’s operator-producers — with BP and ConocoPhillips the largest in northern Alaska, and Hilcorp the largest in the Southcentral part of the state, the Cook Inlet basin.
Smaller operators of production in both areas are also covered, as are two companies with fields under development.
If all goes according to plan, independent Brooks Range Petroleum will become the newest North Slope operator-producer sometime in early 2015 — see Contents for a page number for the full Brooks Range story and the others mentioned below.
ConocoPhillips is covered twice because it is a major North Slope operator-producer, as well as the operator of Cook Inlet legacy fields.
Cook Inlet Energy has been working the west side of the inlet, bringing oil properties back online and is now looking for production increases via new drilling.
Unfortunately, XTO Energy’s emphasis and investment in the Cook Inlet Middle Ground Shoal field has declined since the independent became part ExxonMobil. However, its legacy field’s July output was up some 12.5 percent from July 2012.
The smallest operator-producer on the North Slope, Savant, is working the region’s most challenging field, Badami.
Pioneer Natural Resources, the first independent operator-producer in northern Alaska, keeps searching for, and finding, new oil at its Oooguruk field.
In less than two years Hilcorp became the dominant oil and gas producer in the Cook Inlet basin, touting some impressive production increases.
At its Point Thomson development longtime North Slope producer ExxonMobil will soon be operating its first field in Alaska.
And there are more — Armstrong, the southernmost producer-operator in Alaska; BP, operator of the giant Prudhoe Bay field; Aurora, which operates five gas fields in the Cook Inlet basin; Buccaneer, operator of a small onshore Cook Inlet field; Eni, which is looking to expand its Nikaitchuq unit; and the North Slope Borough, operating three gas fields near Barrow.
