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ExxonMobil working to make Point Thomson economic
Kristen Nelson
Jack Williams, Alaska production manager for ExxonMobil, told the Resource Development Council’s annual conference Nov. 29 that effective July 1, ExxonMobil consolidated all of its producing properties in Alaska into a new company, ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc.
The company has a 75 percent working interest in the Unocal-operated Granite Point unit in Cook Inlet through Mobil, Williams said, but ExxonMobil’s interest in Alaska centers around Prudhoe Bay where the company has about a 36.5 percent interest.
Prudhoe is still the largest single liquids production contributor to ExxonMobil, and represents about 8 percent of the company’s worldwide production, Williams said.
Williams, who came to Alaska just this spring, said he’s most impressed by innovative field development at Prudhoe.
“Unit operator BP’s been able to economically reenter old wells and reach ever smaller reserve targets. This and other technology applications are definitely making a difference on ultimate recovery at Prudhoe Bay,” he said.
ExxonMobil Point Thomson operator ExxonMobil is the operator at Point Thomson and Williams said the company has, on behalf of the other major owners—BP, ChevronTexaco and Philllips—entered into the permitting phase for a gas cycling project at the field, with the goal of recovering 200 million barrels before initiating a gas sale from the field.
“We’ll do this,” he said, “by producing the gas, stripping out the liquids and then reinjecting the lean gas to support reservoir pressure. The cycling pipe infrastructure could then later be used to do gas sales.”
He said that the economics of Point Thomson development are “quite challenging” because the “reservoir requires high-pressure injection, the likes of which has not been seen on the North Slope, and will in fact test the limits of current technology.”
Development will require expensive, highly deviated wells, Williams said, and project investment is expected to top $1 billion.
He said ExxonMobil hopes the permitting process for Point Thomson will be expedited “consistent with the recent presidential executive order.” If that occurs, Point Thomson could be online by 2006. Peak production is expected to reach 70,000 barrels of condensate a day.
Asked if gas from Point Thomson could go directly to a gasline if one were in place, Williams said he thought there was a lot of uncertainty around the timing of a gas sales line.
What’s being studied now for Point Thomson, he said, is a gas cycling project.
“And we’re very optimistic about that project and we’re continuing to work the engineering to get the cost down,” Williams said.
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