ConocoPhillips spuds Carbon, drilling under way at Placer
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas said Aug. 15 that the state's North Slope and Beaufort Sea areawide oil and gas lease sales will be held Nov. 15 at the Wilda Marston Theatre at the Loussac Public Library in Anchorage at 8:30 a.m.
For the Beaufort Sea areawide sale, bidding will be a cash bonus with a minimum bid of $10 per acre on all tracts. Royalty rates vary, with some tracts having a 16 2/3 percent royalty rate and a lease term of seven year and other tracts having a 12.5 percent royalty rate and a lease term of 10 years.
For the North Slope areawide sale, bidding will also be on a cash bonus basis, with a minimum bid of $5 per acre on all tracts and all tracts having a lease term of seven years. As in the Beaufort Sea sale, some tracts in the North Slope sale have a royalty rate of 16 2/3 percent and others have a 12.5 percent royalty rate.
More information is available at: www.dnr.state.ak.us/oil
Alyeska owners approve $250 million upgrades to pipeline
Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. said today that it has received approval from owners of the trans-Alaska pipeline system to invest more than $250 million in a project to upgrade the pipeline’s pump stations. Alyeska said the project is one of the most significant investments since construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline.
The project includes installing electrically driven crude oil pumps at four critical pump stations, increasing automation and upgrading control systems.
Alyeska said it estimates the project could reduce the cost of operating the pipeline by approximately 10 percent annually and eliminate maintenance costs for equipment and facilities no longer required.
Pump stations 1, 3, 4 and 9 will be reconfigured and controlled and operated remotely and newly manufactured pump station units “will be modular and scalable to more easily accommodate changes in pipeline throughput,” the company said in a statement.
Alyeska said that some 350 job reductions will occur over the next two to three years from the Alyeska work force of approximately 1,600, including contractors, and will be “roughly split between Alyeska and contract employees.”
Changes to the system will not happen all at once, the company said, and the project is scheduled for completion by the end of 2005.
The next step in the project will be detailed engineering and ordering long-lead materials.
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