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BP suspends Badami production
Kristen Nelson
BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. said Feb. 4 that it is temporarily suspending production from the Badami field to perform well work and to collect and analyze additional reservoir data.
BP said that timing of the suspension was dictated by extreme low temperatures on the North Slope and that it plans to resume production in several months on completion of the evaluation program.
Octavio Pastrana, head of BP’s eastern North Slope business unit, said in a statement that: “This ‘time out’ will give us an opportunity to enhance our understanding of the reservoir.”
“Badami has a very complex reservoir. We still believe in Badami’s potential, but we need a much better understanding of reservoir characteristics in order to realize that potential,” Pastrana said.
BP said that operators will remain on site during the suspension to maintain equipment, perform well work and gather additional reservoir data from the wells. BP purging pipeline BP spokesman Paul Laird told PNA that the pipeline and facilities would be purged with natural gas after oil production was suspended. The wells were to be shut in Feb. 4 and the pipeline purged with gas over the next few days, he said.
Laird said the suspension of production had a twofold purpose: to protect the pipeline and to allow time to gather more reservoir and crude characteristics information.
“Throughput has declined to such low rates that with extreme temperatures on the slope we could have run the risk of plugging the pipeline,” he said. Badami oil is very waxy and will plug up at higher temperatures than oil from other sources; putting so little oil through the line also increased the risk, Laird said.
Flow from the Badami field had been averaging less than 3,000 barrels per day. In late October, when production was averaging 4,000-5,000 barrels per day, Laird said that BP “had expected to be producing more than 10,000 barrels per day at this stage.”
Eight wells have been drilled at Badami, Laird said, and a ninth was in the process of being drilled when the rig had to be moved out to BP’s Red Dog exploration well. Once work at Red Dog is completed, he said, the rig will be moved back to Badami and the ninth well will be completed. The exploration well at Red Dog has been spud, Laird said.
Badami is about 35 miles east of the Prudhoe Bay oil field. It started producing in late August and has produced less than 500,000 barrels of oil, Laird said.
BP has a 70 percent interest in Badami and is field operator. Petrofina Delaware holds a 30 percent interest.
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