Alpine expansion work update

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News editor-in-chief

The focus for two expansion projects at the Alpine field on Alaska’s North Slope has shifted from fabrication sites in Anchorage to the field.

Alpine field owners ConocoPhillips Alaska (78 percent) and Anadarko Petroleum (22 percent) sanctioned phase 1 of the expansion last year and phase 2 this year. Production from Alpine began in November 2000 and the field, originally designed to produce at 80,000 barrels per day, has been producing at a higher rate, some 100,000 bpd.

The $60 million phase 1 will be online by the end of the year, and will increase both water and gas handling capacities at the Alpine facility, allowing for increased oil production and maintenance of reservoir pressure, with a 5,000 barrel-per-day production increase expected.

Phase 2 of the project, pegged at $58 million, will kick up production capacity to 140,000 bpd by mid-2005. Phase 2 increases both oil handling and seawater injection capabilities at Alpine.

ConocoPhillips Alaska spokeswoman Dawn Patience told Petroleum News in March that there are eight truckable modules for the two projects, and she said the majority of the modules were going to the North Slope over this past winter.

Patience said May 11 that 90 percent of the engineering effort for the expansion projects is complete.

“Engineering is now focused on North Slope construction support,” she said.

Expansion project construction work has started at both Alpine and Kuparuk, with about 200 workers on site, Patience said.

“The major items, like the turbine generator skids, the diesel generator and the condensate injection pump were successfully transported to Alpine this winter.”

Modules and other equipment were moved to Alpine over the winter on the ice road which was built from Kuparuk to Alpine. Patience said Arctic Energy Services and VECO fabrication shops in Anchorage were involved in module construction, and met “very aggressive” schedules for module delivery. Fabricated pipe spools and structural items continue to be fabricated and shipped from the Arctic Energy Services.

Sometime this summer Alpine will be shutdown for a time to allow for portions of the expansion work that cannot be done with the field on production.