Hilcorp files for North Slope ODPCD

Hilcorp Alaska has filed an oil discharge prevention and contingency plan for the North Slope fields it will operate when its purchase of those assets from BP Exploration (Alaska) closes, which is expected at the end of the year.

The sale, pegged at $1.25 billion, was announced in April. It includes all of BP’s interests in the Endicott and Northstar oil fields and a 50 percent interest in Liberty and Milne Point.

Hilcorp will become the operator at Endicott, Milne Point and Northstar - the fields covered in the ODPCD filed with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation earlier in August.

DEC is accepting comments on the plan through Sept. 8.

The sale also includes pipelines, and BP’s local pipeline subsidiary earlier this summer asked the Regulatory Commission of Alaska for permission to transfer all or some of its interests in the Northstar Oil Pipeline, the Northstar Gas Pipeline, the Milne Point Oil Pipeline, the Milne Point Natural Gas Liquids Pipeline and the Endicott Pipeline to Harvest Alaska, a Hilcorp pipeline company.

BP said when the sale was announced that the assets included represented some 19,700 barrels of oil equivalent a day of net production for BP, less than 15 percent of the company’s net North Slope production.

- Kristen Nelson