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Forest Oil has slashed its estimate of proved reserves at the Redoubt Shoal field in Cook Inlet to 8 million barrels, taking 49 million barrels out of its previous estimate, moved the drilling rig off the Osprey platform and replaced it with a smaller rig which will be used to work on the existing wells, but not to drill new wells.
Estimated reserves were reduced following completion of an integrated field study. The company said in a statement that the new estimate reflects both lower than expected production rates and new data evaluations showing “significantly lower oil in place.”
Forest said 36 million of the 49 million barrels dropped from its reserves estimate had been categorized as proved undeveloped.
Craig Clark, Forest Oil’s president and CEO, told a Jan. 27 conference call that the company is “very disappointed” in the reduction in proved reserves at Redoubt.
He said Forest has finished its detailed technical review and also has results back from the independent third-party review. Geological and geophysical data gathered in 2003 was combined with previous data and the reservoir was remapped using new seismic and new well data.
The rig at the Osprey platform at Redoubt Shoal was on a three-year contract and when that contract expired the rig was moved off the platform and the company moved in “a less expensive hydraulic rig from the Gulf Coast,” Clark said. That rig is expected to be operational later this month and will be used first to repair the electrical submersible pump that went down late last year in the No. 1 well, and then to complete the No. 7 well, which was drilled and cased in December.
Production began at Redoubt in December 2002 and Clark said more than a million barrels has been produced to date; current production at the field, with the No. 1 well down, is in the 1,500 to 2,000 barrel per day range.
NPR-A sale set for May 5
The U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management said April 5 that the lease sale for the northeast portion of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska will be held May 5. Bids will be opened at 9 am at the Wilda Marston theater in the Loussac Public Library in Anchorage.
A preliminary notice of the sale was released in January. Potential bidders may obtain a detailed statement for sale 991 from the public information center at the BLM state office in Anchorage, 222 West 7th Avenue #13, phone 907 271-5960. The bid packet will include, among other things, a description of the areas offered for lease, lease terms, conditions and special stipulations and information on how and where to submit bids.
ANS term price up 25 percent
BP Amoco's April term price for Alaska North Slope crude is $13.06 a barrel, up $2.59 a barrel, 24.7 percent, from March's term price of $10.47 a barrel.
In January the term price was $9.37 a barrel, the lowest it had been since July 1986 when it stood at $9 a barrel.
The year-to-date average term price is $10.92 a barrel, down 23 percent from the comparable 1998 year-to-date average of $14.19 a barrel. The 1999 April term price is 7 percent above the 1998 April term price of $12.23 a barrel.
The term price represents an average of spot prices for the previous month. BP Amoco has the largest percent of ANS production and is the only producer to post term prices.
North Slope production up 4 percent
Alaska North Slope crude oil and natural gas production averaged 1,176,367 barrels a day in March, up 4 percent from 1,130,801 barrels in February.
Endicott production dropped significantly because of tie-in work at the field for enhanced oil recovery, averaging only 38,055 barrels a day - down 27.8 percent from an average of 52,705 barrels a day in February.
Production at all other fields was up for the month. The largest percentage increase (8.69 percent) was at the Milne Point field, which averaged 56,542 barrels. Kuparuk production averaged 281,877 barrels a day, up 8.65 percent from February. Prudhoe Bay production averaged 583,667 barrels a day, up 2.83 percent from February. The Lisburne production center averaged 145,725 barrels a day, up 1.61 percent from February. Prudhoe Bay natural gas liquids production averaged 70,501 barrels a day, up 27 percent from February.
Cook Inlet production averaged 30,499 barrels a day, up 1.6 percent from February.
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