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PTE Pipeline, Exxon apply for connection Regulatory Commission of Alaska has application to connect Point Thomson production facilities to Point Thomson Export Pipeline KRISTEN NELSON Petroleum News
PTE Pipeline LLC and ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc. have filed a joint application with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska for a permit to connect production facilities at the Point Thomson unit with the Point Thomson Export Pipeline System.
RCA approved a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the pipeline in late 2012. The 22-mile common carrier line connects Point Thomson with the existing Badami Pipeline. That line connects to the Endicott Pipeline which then connects to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
Transportation of liquid hydrocarbons through the line is expected to begin in the winter of 2015-16, the companies said in their joint application.
The connection is designed to accommodate the 70,000 barrels-per-day design capacity of the pipeline, which has an estimated life of 30 years, but is projected to be longer with proper maintenance and operating procedures, the companies said.
Initial throughput is expected to range from 1,500 bpd to 10,000 bpd. The 10,000 bpd is the projected production from the Point Thomson initial production system.
No formal proceedings The companies said that since the commission has approved a certificate of public convenience and necessity, and the commission has previously determined that connection of the Point Thomson facilities to the pipeline is necessary to transport stranded petroleum to market, they are requesting approval without formal proceedings.
Initial production from Point Thomson will be some 10,000 bpd of natural gas condensate.
In a March release ExxonMobil said it had resumed drilling at Point Thomson and also said the initial production system is scheduled for startup in 2016, with two injection wells working in tandem with a production well and cycling some 200 million cubic feet of natural gas per day through the field’s central processing facility.
ExxonMobil applied to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in May for an area injection order for the Thomson sand reservoir and said at that time that facility process modules, being fabricated offsite and sealifted to Point Thomson, would be installed and commission in the second half of the year. In that application the company said it is considering initial startup with a single producer, PTU-15, and a single injector, PTU-16. Those two wells, drilled in 2009 and 2010, are on the Central Pad. When the PTU-17 is drilled and completed, PTU-15 would be converted to an injector and PTU-17 would become the single producing well.
Plan based on settlement The first leases were acquired at Point Thomson, which is on the North Slope at the eastern edge of state acreage, in 1965; oil was discovered in 1975; gas was discovered in 1977; the Point Thomson unit was formed in 1977.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources put the unit into default in 2005 for lack of development and terminated the unit in late 2006. The state’s actions were appealed by the producers and in December 2007 an Alaska Superior Court judge remanded the unit termination decision to DNR. DNR rejected a new plan of development in April 2008 and the producers appealed to Superior Court, which ruled that DNR erred in terminating the unit.
The Alaska Supreme Court granted a petition from the state for review, halting the Superior Court litigation.
In 2012 the state reached a settlement with the producers on Point Thomson.
The settlement required the initial production system, producing 10,000 bpd of liquid gas condensates, to be in production by the end of the 2015-16 winter season; a well on the west pad by the end of the 2016-17 winter season; and permitting of two additional wells and the east pad.
There are three expanded development alternatives after the initial production system is completed: a major gas sale, which must be sanctioned by June 2016; failing that, engineering and permitting must begin on either of two other options - expanded liquids production into the trans-Alaska oil pipeline; or expanded liquids production, enhanced Prudhoe Bay recovery and natural gas for in-state use.
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