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BP permanently restricts drilling at Northstar to winter season Company has asked permission to remove one of three barges from North Slope in exchange for doing reservoir penetrations only during winter
By Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. will be permanently restricting drilling at Northstar to the winter season. The company has applied to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to eliminate one of three Beaufort-class barges required for its oil discharge prevention and contingency plan in exchange for permanent seasonal restrictions on drilling activity at the island.
DEC said June 7 that BP has applied to amend its oil discharge prevention and contingency plan and “to implement seasonal drilling restrictions into routine development planning for production at Northstar.”
DEC said the change “reduces the risk of a major blow out event during freeze-up, open water and break up.” BP is proposing to release one of three Beaufort-class barges and the associated point-class tug required as a condition of approval of its Northstar oil discharge prevention and contingency plan. BP living with restrictions now BP Exploration (Alaska) spokesman Ronnie Chappell told PNA that BP is living with the restrictions now and “we’ve determined that it makes sense to extend them.” Even with the restrictions, he said, BP will “be able to develop the field economically and still bring it online later this year.”
The amendment prohibits “the drilling of new wells or sidetracks from existing wells into major liquid hydrocarbon zones during the defined period of broken ice and open water” beginning June 13 and ending with the presence of 18 inches of continuous ice cover for one-half mile in all directions from the Northstar production island.
BP will present reservoir information to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for a determination of which stratigraphic zones represent major liquid hydrocarbon accumulations. The AOGCC determination will be submitted to DEC for concurrence and approval of broken ice and open water drilling programs.
Chappell said BP is still working with the AOGCC to determine where the major hydrocarbon zones are and to determine how much drilling could be done above those zones during the broken ice and open water period.
He said the restrictions look much the same as they do now — taking effect in early summer and lasting until perhaps early November. Sealift this summer Chappell also said that BP “had always anticipated that there would be a pause in drilling this year as we prepare the island to receive the large production modules being fabricated in Anchorage.” He said the drilling restrictions will not affect the startup date.
“We still expect to achieve peak production in early 2002 of 65,000 barrels per day and expect to be able to maintain peak production during the period required to drill up the field.” While the drilling restriction won’t affect the production rate, he said, it will have some impact on the period required to complete the drilling program.
Northstar living quarters, tank skid and pipe racks were sealifted from Anchorage on one barge and installed last summer. The production modules for the island are under construction at North Star Terminal in Anchorage and will be sealifted to the North Slope on three barges this summer. Production is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter.
Recoverable oil is estimated at 176 million barrels with production expected to peak at about 65,000 barrels per day.
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