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January ANS production down almost 1%
Alaska North Slope crude oil production averaged 576,959 barrels per day in January, down 0.9 percent from a December average of 582,149 bpd.
Cook Inlet, with its much smaller volumes, saw a 7.4 percent increase in December over November, averaging 12,072 bpd compared to 11,243 bpd in November.
Except where noted, North Slope volumes are from the Alaska Department of Revenue’s Tax Division, which reports oil production consolidated by major production centers and provides daily production and monthly averages for the most recent month.
Cook Inlet volumes, and those for individual North Slope fields, are from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which reports production by pool and field on a month-delay basis.
Cook Inlet The 7.4 percent December-over-November production increase from Cook Inlet was driven by Hilcorp Alaska’s Swanson River field, which averaged 2,028 bpd in December, up 158 percent from a November average of 786 bpd.
John Barnes, Hilcorp Alaska senior vice president, said in a December talk at Commonwealth North that there were a lot of wells that needed to be fixed at Swanson River when Hilcorp took it over (in January 2012). He said Hilcorp has been operating a drilling rig and using a pulling unit for well remediation at the field, as well as bringing in a workover rig (see story in Dec. 16 issue of Petroleum News.) Barnes said Swanson River was producing 300 bpd when Hilcorp took it over, but Dec. 7, the day of his talk, the field was producing 2,200 bpd, with one recently completed well producing at more than 1,000 bpd.
With the increase at Swanson River, there are now four Cook Inlet fields producing more than a thousand barrels a day: the Hilcorp-operated Granite Point field, which averaged 2,130 bpd in December, down 0.5 percent from November; the Hilcorp-operated McArthur River field, which averaged 3,947 bpd in December, down 8.9 percent from November; and Middle Ground Shoal, operated by ExxonMobil subsidiary XTO, which averaged 2,197 bpd in December, up 5.4 percent from November.
North Slope The BP Exploration (Alaska)-operated Prudhoe Bay field averaged 337,827 bpd in January, down 0.7 percent from a December average of 340,253 bpd. Prudhoe Bay includes satellite production from Aurora, Borealis, Midnight Sun, Orion and Polaris, as well as field production from Northstar and Milne Point.
The ConocoPhillips Alaska-operated Kuparuk River field averaged 131,197 bpd in January, down 1 percent from a December average of 132,526 bpd. Kuparuk includes satellite production from Tarn, Meltwater and West Sak, as well as field production from the Eni-operated Nikaitchuq field and the Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska-operated Oooguruk field.
AOGCC December data for Nikaitchuq shows 9,844 bpd, up 1.9 percent from November, and 6,270 bpd from Oooguruk, down 3.1 percent from November.
The BP-operated Endicott field averaged 10,923 bpd in January, up 0.8 percent from a December average of 10,837 bpd. Endicott volumes include the Savant Alaska-operated Badami field. AOGCC data shows Badami averaged 1,315 bpd in December, down 1.4 percent from November.
The BP-operated Lisburne field, which includes Niakuk and Point McIntyre production, averaged 30,499 bpd in January, up 5.4 percent from a December average of 28,949 bpd.
The ConocoPhillips-operated Alpine field averaged 66,513 bpd in January, down 4.4 percent from a December average of 69,584 bpd. Alpine includes satellite production from Fiord, Nanuq and Qannik.
ANS crude oil production peaked in 1988 at 2.1 million bpd; Cook Inlet crude oil production peaked in 1970 at more than 227,000 bpd.
—Kristen Nelson
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