BP Amoco ANS term prices up 14 percent
BP Amoco’s October term price for Alaska North Slope crude is $22.95 a barrel, up $2.80 a barrel from September (a 13.9 percent increase) and the highest the term price has been since February 1997, when it stood at $23.63 a barrel.
Year-to-date the 1999 term price has averaged $15.24 a barrel, up 14.7 percent from the comparable 1998 year-to-date average of $13.29 a barrel.
The term price started the year at $9.37 a barrel -- the only time since July 1986 it has been below $10 a barrel.
BP Amoco is the largest producer of ANS crude and the only one to post term prices.
As of Sept. 30 the state’s fiscal year-to-date average was $19.42 a barrel. This is an increase of $5.85 a barrel from the Department of Revenue spring estimate of $13.57 a barrel.
Revenue’s Oil and Gas Audit Division attributed the difference to West Coast refinery outages, maintenance-related decreases in North Slope production and OPEC’s ability to honor production quotas by nearly 90 percent as contributing to the higher than predicted prices.
September North Slope production down 8 percent from August
North Slope crude and liquid natural gas production averaged 949,809 barrels a day in September, down 7.96 percent from an average of 1,031,904 barrels a day in August, and down 14.71 percent from an average 1,113,644 barrels a day in September 1998.
The Alaska Department of Revenue Division of Oil and Gas Audit cited a number of factors which had a negative impact on last month’s production: the average pump station 1 temperature of 37 degrees Fahrenheit was 3.7 degrees above the average of 33.3 degrees for the month; two 510,000 barrel storage tanks in Valdez were out of service for routine maintenance; at Prudhoe Bay there was gathering center 1 and annex maintenance from Sept. 5-6 in preparation for the Sept. 11 shutdown of the trans-Alaska pipeline; and the 28-32 hour shutdown of the pipeline on Sept. 11-12 for remote gate valve 60 replacement and north pipeline inspection.
As of Sept. 30, the division said, fiscal year-to-day production averaged 0.996 million barrels a day, 51,000 barrels a day below the forecast it released in April. The division attributed the lower production to the pipeline shutdown in September and a slow ramp up of production.
Prudhoe Bay had the largest absolute drop in production from September to August, averaging 502,375 barrels a day, down 9.31 percent from August.
The Lisburne production center was down 11.79 percent from August, averaging 113,363 barrels a day in September.
Milne Point production was down 8.68 percent, averaging 51,012 barrels a day in September.
Production from Kuparuk averaged 237,945 barrels a day in September, down 3.57 percent from August.
Endicott averaged 45,114 barrels a day in September, down 3.64 percent from August.
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