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First at Endicott
There have been some “tremendous firsts” at Endicott, John Denis, east resources manager for BP Exploration (Alaska)’s Alaska consolidated team, said in an Oct. 9 interview.
In addition to being “the first true offshore Arctic island” production facility, “one of the huge successes of Endicott was all the pre-commissioning,” he said. The first sealift modules for Endicott, housing and utility modules, arrived in August 1986. The second sealift, containing production modules, arrived in mid-August 1987, and field startup was in early October. “They brought that plant up on the barges, put it on the island and three months later it was producing,” Denis said. BP involved operations people in engineering and construction and everything was pre-tested at the construction site in New Iberia, La.
For that size of an operation a year would be normal to bring it online, he said, or at least a period from sealift arrival over the winter to spring.
This hadn’t been attempted before because Endicott was a standalone facility, unlike Prudhoe and Kuparuk, the first fields put on production, which were larger fields and had scattered facilities.
Part of the objective at Endicott was to reduce the footprint, Denis said, which reduces the environmental impact and the cost of gravel. The 10-foot centers for Endicott wells, while standard today, was “a radical departure from what things had been in the past and so the footprint of the island was extremely small by those standards.”
Endicott was also the first time they used a cantilevered rig.
Early satellite development Endicott is “pretty well known and explored,” Denis said. Some of the first North Slope satellites — Sag Delta North and Eider — were at Endicott.
There are a couple of prospects in BP’s portfolio at Endicott, and they’ll be drilled eventually. It’s less of an issue of what is there and more of an “issue about pace and where to deploy your people and your rigs” because there are so many things to drill up.
“We’re doing a satellite this year at Northstar — the well we call Fido,” Denis said. That satellite opportunity ranked higher than those at Endicott.
And while Liberty has not yet been approved, that prospect — east of Endicott — is currently slated to be drilled from the Endicott satellite drilling island with long-reach wells going out some six to eight miles.
The plan, said BP spokesman Daren Beaudo, is to add some more gravel to the satellite drilling island. It’s basically a development from onshore, Beaudo said, because “that satellite drilling island is a stone’s throw from the shoreline there.”
BP is working on a facility sharing agreement with the Endicott partners (in addition to BP, major owners at Endicott include ExxonMobil and Chevron; Alaska Native corporations NANA and Doyon Ltd. also have interests).
Duplex steel plant When Endicott was built, it was built to be the eastern hub, and it was built with duplex steel, stainless steel, Denis said. The plant was built for Endicott, but it was also built for the future, he said.
The cost is more for stainless steel, and it’s tougher to work with, Denis said, but it’s more resistant to corrosion.
Since the decision was made to build Endicott with stainless steel the plant is there to handle the Liberty barrels. Some upgrades will be needed, such as the control systems which began four years ago and have been accelerated in the last two years.
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