“We have not backed off the Alpine project. We are not slowing down field development,” ARCO Alaska spokesman Ronnie Chappell said Dec. 7.

The field, expected to produce 365 million barrels of oil from an estimated oil in place reservoir of 1 billion barrels, “will begin production at expected rates in mid-2000,” he said. “And we’re still looking for 40,000 barrels of oil per day at startup ramping up to 70,000 in 2001.”

With most large projects, Chappell said, it is normal to challenge plans made in the design stage. “With oil at $9 a barrel we’re going at that process a little harder than we have in the past,” he said. “We have gone back and taken a very hard look at the Alpine project and looked at ways to reduce spending on the project in 1999.”

Objectives cost reduction and cost deferral