BP Amoco ANS term prices up 14 percent

Kristen Nelson

BP Amoco’s October term price for Alaska North Slope crude is $22.95 a barrel, up $2.80 a barrel from September (a 13.9 percent increase) and the highest the term price has been since February 1997, when it stood at $23.63 a barrel.

Year-to-date the 1999 term price has averaged $15.24 a barrel, up 14.7 percent from the comparable 1998 year-to-date average of $13.29 a barrel.

The term price started the year at $9.37 a barrel — the only time since July 1986 it has been below $10 a barrel.

BP Amoco is the largest producer of ANS crude and the only one to post term prices.

As of Sept. 30 the state’s fiscal year-to-date average was $19.42 a barrel. This is an increase of $5.85 a barrel from the Department of Revenue spring estimate of $13.57 a barrel.

Revenue’s Oil and Gas Audit Division attributed the difference to West Coast refinery outages, maintenance-related decreases in North Slope production and OPEC’s ability to honor production quotas by nearly 90 percent as contributing to the higher than predicted prices.