Hilcorp ups the ante on Cook Inlet fields

Hilcorp has proposed an amendment to its oil spill contingency plan for its Cook Inlet oil fields, increasing the standard for its contingency planning from a theoretical spill size of 2,520 barrels to 75,000 barrels, a nearly 30-fold increase. The planning standard determines the requirements for equipment and personnel that the company needs to have available to respond to a spill, should need arise. The size of the standard can also impact the plans for how a response would be carried out.

The amended plan increases the maximum likely oil flow rate from an out-of-control well from 840 barrels per day to 5,000 barrels per day, while also increasing the possible duration of a well blowout from three days to 15 days. An official from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, or ADEC, the state agency that oversees oil spill contingency planning, told Petroleum News that the increase from three days to 15 days represents a change from an assumption that wells require some form of artificial lift to produce oil to an assumption of the possibility of oil flowing from a well unaided.

Hilcorp spokeswoman Lori Nelson told Petroleum News in a Dec. 9 email that Hilcorp is raising the bar on the planning standard to take into account the possibility of future developments.

“By increasing the response planning standard we ensure our ability to respond effectively as we bring incremental increases in oil production online from Cook Inlet,” Nelson said.

ADEC requires comments on the amended plan by Jan. 6.

—Alan Bailey