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Goal to raise output 10 percent in 2002
Kay Cashman
When Steve Marshall, president of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., told employees in a Nov. 16 e-mail that the company is disbanding its exploration unit in Alaska, he said the attention of the remaining in-field and satellite exploration staff in Anchorage will be focused on “accumulations which can be produced through existing facilities, lowering development costs and shortening the time between exploration and production.”
In 2002, Marshall said, BP will invest more than $700 million in “existing fields, on satellite field development and on facility upgrades and tanker construction.”
BP spokesman Ronnie Chappell told PNA Nov. 16 that the company expects to increase net production from Alaska by 10 percent in 2002.
In a separate e-mail Marshall addressed the subject of “rumors that BP is considering the sale of its Alaska assets.” (See related story on page 5.) He said BP “does not comment on rumors relating to the acquisition or sale of assets anywhere in the world even when those rumors are unfounded,” reminding employees, “Alaska is a large and material piece of BP's global business, accounting for about 10 percent of the company's worldwide production.”
Marshall said over the next 5 years, BP “will spend more than $800 million to build four new double hull tankers to move BP's Alaska production to market.” The company also has options on two additional ships.
Lifting costs cut in half As a result of the Prudhoe Bay unit alignment agreement, he said BP reduced its Prudhoe lifting costs by half. “As a result, our Alaska business is in better shape today than it was 2 years ago.”
The company's goal, Marshall said, “is to convert BP's huge North Slope resource base of more than 7 billion barrels of oil equivalent into 30 or 40 years of production by managing our costs and investing wisely.”
He pledged “continuing support for the effort to move North Slope natural gas to market.”
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