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BP, Phillips, will each spend some $800 million in Alaska in 2001 BP will bring Northstar on line in the fourth quarter; Phillips to begin development at Meltwater Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
BP and Phillips will each spend some $800 million in Alaska in 2001, Dick Olver, group managing director of BP and chief executive officer of BP Exploration, and Kevin Meyers, president of Phillips Alaska Inc, told the Alaska Support Industry Alliance “Meet Alaska” conference January 26 in Anchorage.
Olver said BP has increased its overall capital budget for 2001 by 25 percent, and will spend more than $800 million in the state on projects including Northstar, viscous oil, satellite field development and exploration.
Meyers said Phillips will spend more than $800 million in the state this year developing viscous oil at West Sak and bringing on new satellites — Meltwater at Kuparuk and Borealis at Prudhoe Bay.
Both companies investments also include continuing development at existing fields.
Olver said there will be an average of 10 rigs running on the North Slope, more at peak, compared to the three rigs running in 1999. There will be “175 new penetrations on the slope, up 80 percent over the last year (and) 440 well interventions, up 40 percent from last year,” he said. The five Prudhoe Bay satellites being worked on now will move from 4,000 barrels a day last year to 40,000 barrels a day by the end of the year, he said. Phillips production to grow Meyers said that in 2000, for the first time in a decade, the company’s production in Alaska did not decline, but grew slightly from 1999. And projects under way will help Phillips increase its production in 2001 to almost 400,000 barrels a day of oil equivalent in the state, close to a 10 percent increase over 2000, he said.
Meyers said Phillips expects production to stay at that level for the next three to five years, “and then beyond that, we’re planning to see them rise even further, as our exploration program bears additional fruit.” Drilling will continue at Alpine, Meyers said, where Phillips is putting in a second drill site.
Phillips hopes to complete 12 to 15 exploration wells this winter, compared to just six wells in 1998 and nine wells in 1999. BP to drill in NPR-A On the BP side, the Northstar project is on track to start up in the fourth quarter. BP will drill its first three exploration wells in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska this year, Olver said.
BP is building a pilot gas-to-liquids plant in Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula, and is working with fellow North Slope gas owners ExxonMobil and Phillips Alaska on ways to commercialize that resource, Olver said.
Phillips will spend about $200 million this year on the construction of its four new Millennium-class tankers, and will take delivery of the first of the new tankers this year, Meyers said.
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