Realigned oil companies plan no shift in pipeline ownership

by The Associated Press

The state’s largest oil producers say they have no plans to change ownership of the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline despite some major ownership changes at the Prudhoe Bay oil field.

ExxonMobil, BP Amoco and Phillips Petroleum shuffled ownership of the huge oil and gas reserves at the Prudhoe field in April so each company’s oil ownership matched its gas ownership.

Each had owned different amounts of oil and gas since 1968. Ownership of the pipeline roughly matched ownership of Prudhoe oil.

But under the new deal, BP Amoco gave up about 60,000 barrels a day of oil and gained some 3 trillion cubic feet of gas. That gives it 26.7 percent of the total Prudhoe field.

ExxonMobil and Phillips Petroleum each gained about 30,000 barrels a day of oil and lost gas under the deal. Those two companies each own 37 percent of Prudhoe.

The new Prudhoe ownership leaves Phillips and ExxonMobil with more oil than pipeline capacity.