Badami field producing at 2,000 bpd

BP Exploration (Alaska)’s eastern North Slope Badami field is producing at about 2,000 barrels per day and has produced more than 40,000 gross barrels since the field was re-started in mid-September, Bill Bredar, BP’s Badami project geoscientist said Oct. 19.

The 1997 development decision at the complex turbidite reservoir was a gutsy move on BP’s part, Bredar said. The reservoir has “poorly connected compartments,” and the facility was put into a warm shut-down two years ago due to low flow rates.

Restart was partly due to the high price of oil and partly because BP wants to apply new technology. Work at Badami includes reprocessing seismic, upgrading the reservoir model and obtaining pressure data from the wells, which Bredar said shows reservoir pressure is recharging.

The plan right now, he said, is to continue production, to monitor the reservoir and perhaps to drill. If BP drills at Badami it would be a horizontal well supported by an ice road from Endicott. Badami is a remote, roadless facility. This is a three-year testing phase; any redevelopment decision would be made in 2007.

—Kristen Nelson