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Working the iron BP kicks up Point McIntyre production with de-bottlenecking work Kristen Nelson Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief
BP Exploration (Alaska), which operates the Prudhoe Bay and Greater Point McIntyre oil fields on Alaska’s central North Slope, is investing in facilities de-bottlenecking to produce more oil from Point McIntyre.
A $25-$35 million project, originally called “waterwheel” and now called “PM2 to GC1” (Point McIntyre drill site 2 to Gathering Center 1), will increase oil production from Point McIntyre, where half of the wells are shut in because of lack of pipeline space to the Lisburne Production Center and lack of gas and water handling capacity at the center.
While exploration and development drilling get the credit for stemming the decline in North Slope crude oil production levels, oil can only be produced if facilities are in place to process and transport it. Facilities de-bottlenecking can add barrels without new drilling, and at the slope’s older fields, existing facilities — built to handle peak levels of production — can be put to new uses.
Ken Rupp is BP Exploration (Alaska)’s project sponsor for this facilities work, which will initially add some 5,000 barrels per day to Point McIntyre production. And, Rupp told Petroleum News, in the future the impact of this facilities work, a group of related projects, is expected to produce a production increase of up to 9,000 bpd.
In addition to de-bottlenecking to allow Point McIntyre wells, half of which have been shut in, to be produced, BP is also making changes to move water to places it is needed and to move miscible injectant, which is what will produce the second, longer term, increase in Point McIntyre production.
Alignment of Prudhoe Bay field ownership and consolidation of field operatorship at Prudhoe and the Point McIntyre area fields under BP following the sale of ARCO’s Alaska assets to Phillips Petroleum in 2000 made this project possible, Rupp said Jan. 14, and planning started for this work that same year.
The project does not involve any new wells. And putting existing infrastructure to new uses brought the project in at a cost of $25 million to $35 million, compared to costs in the hundred-million dollar range if alignment had not taken place and fields with different owners and different operators had to build new facilities. Point McIntyre oil to Prudhoe BP is rerouting both crude oil and water.
The oil that is being rerouted comes from Point McIntyre, formerly operated by ARCO — where Rupp worked for 20 years before moving to BP when that company took over as operator of all of the Prudhoe Bay field (formerly operated on the east side by ARCO and on the west side by BP) and Point McIntyre and Lisburne (formerly operated by ARCO).
Point McIntyre is an offshore accumulation north of Prudhoe Bay produced from two onshore drilling pads, one on the causeway at West Dock, the other to the west at Point McIntyre. Three-phase production from Point McIntyre — the mixture of oil, gas and water that comes from the reservoir — is sent southeast to the Lisburne Production Center in a 24-inch diameter pipeline.
That line is “packed full,” Rupp said, and Point McIntyre production “is constrained by … three-phase production limits in the common line” to the Lisburne Production Center, where the oil, gas and water are separated.
In addition, the ability of the Lisburne Production Center to handle water and gas is limited.
As a result, about half of the wells at Point McIntyre are shut in, Rupp said. Opportunity in old seawater line But there is another pipeline available, a 36-inch line that was formerly used to carry seawater from the seawater treatment plant to Gathering Center 1 in the Prudhoe Bay field.
The seawater treatment plant was shut down in the mid-1990s, Rupp said, when there was enough produced water (water separated from the crude oil) to meet field needs, so much produced water in fact that some of it was disposed of into Cretaceous formations.
But the old seawater line is there, “so we’re going to use that line in three-phase service,” he said. It will carry three-phase production from Point McIntyre pad 2 to Gathering Center 1, which has excess water-handling capacity, which Lisburne lacks.
By making use of that available capacity, Rupp said, “we can boost production.
“We’re anticipating, at least initially, on the order of about 5,000 barrels a day” increase in production, he said.
The line is hooked up and ready to go, some additional pig runs are being done to clean the line out and it is expected to be operational in early February. Enhanced oil recovery opportunities also exist The project is also increasing the enhanced oil recovery opportunity at Point McIntyre.
“We’re attempting to optimize production around the field through this project by better utilizing our available infrastructure — and part of this is the MI production, miscible injection production, at the CGF (Central Gas Facility), where … we are in fact now supplying additional miscible injectant to Point Mac.”
Enhanced oil recovery began at Point McIntyre several years ago, Rupp said, using miscible injectant produced at the Lisburne Production Center, “but it’s limited in the volume that it can supply, and CGF has got a greater supply of miscible injectant and again, it’s an optimization opportunity. The Point Mc field is a much more efficient use of that.”
Rupp said the enhanced oil recovery benefits won’t be seen immediately, but over time, as the miscible injectant moves additional crude oil to the production wells, the total increased production from both projects is expected to total as much as 9,000 bpd increased production.
The project, he said, makes the best use of available infrastructure and “the best use of the available miscible injectant.” More water to Gathering Center 1 On the water side, the excess water-handling capacity at Gathering Center 1 is more than just an opportunity for Point McIntyre. The GC1 area of the field also needs water, which is used, as is miscible injectant, to increase oil production. The west side water flood plant was shut down, Rupp said, and there is now a need for water in the Gathering Center 2 area on the west side, where the western Prudhoe Bay field satellites are being developed.
At one time there was excess water on the slope that was being disposed of in the Cretaceous formation.
“That’s gone away,” Rupp said. “We how have a demand for water.”
So processing Point McIntyre crude oil through Gathering Center 1 not only increases oil production from Point McIntyre, the produced water separated out at GC1 “supplies a secondary benefit, additional water to meet those demands in the GC2 area.”
Last year Gathering Center 1’s produced water was tied into Gather Center 2’s produced water “so we could ship excess water from GC1 area through GC2 area, which then is sent out to the satellites and other areas that need the water.
“So this is all part of a continuing process of optimizing and moving water where we need it,” Rupp said. More demand on water at Point McIntyre The increased production from Point McIntyre resulting from bringing Point McIntyre production to Gathering Center 1 will increase the demand for water at Point McIntyre, which currently gets its water from the seawater treatment plant, which also supplies the gas-cap water injection project.
There are constraints on the system because of the demand for seawater for gas-cap water injection and other projects.
Another of the projects under way, the Greater Point McIntyre Area produced water conversion project, will take produced water from Flow Station 1 “in enough quantity to meet the demand up at Point Mc,” Rupp said. Lisburne does generate produced water, but not in quantities sufficient to meet the Point McIntyre demand.
Point McIntyre will be converted to produced water for waterflood injection with excess produced water from Flow Station 1 on the west side of the Prudhoe Bay field, combined with the Lisburne produced water, so that seawater currently going to Point McIntyre can be used in the gas-cap flood injection.
“And by doing this we almost eliminate entirely any disposal of produced water into the Cretaceous (formation), so it’s really making efficient use of our water throughout the field,” Rupp said. A lot of synergies It will also help with water needed at the western satellites.
“Two years ago we were disposing of 80,000 barrels a day of (produced) water into the Cretaceous” at Gathering Center 2, he said, but with the western Prudhoe satellites in production, “that water picture has changed a bit to the point where we’re short of water and we need to supply additional water to support satellites and the other floods in the GC2 area.”
There are other opportunities for water use in the main Prudhoe field as well, he said, so the demand for water has “really gone up… and this project helps meet that demand.”
The project “is a real opportunity,” Rupp said, to make “best use of available infrastructure, the best use of the available miscible injectant we have, and (with) water — optimize it, minimize disposal…”
There are a lot of synergies, he said, not the least of which is in capital costs. If ownership alignment had not occurred, he said, and “Lisburne and Point Mc were separate, they’d be left to their own devices and be faced with 50 to 100 million dollar type investments to accomplish this same thing.”
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