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Hilcorp to replace some Monopod oil pipe
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
As part of its facilities work at its Trading Bay unit in Cook Inlet, Hilcorp Alaska plans to complete ongoing quarters replacement on the Monopod Platform and replace a 4,100-foot section of oil pipeline.
On May 12 the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas approved an amendment to the company’s plan of operations for the oil pipeline segment replacement.
The division said the section to be replaced is part of the existing sub-sea pipeline connecting the Monopod to the Trading Bay Production Facility on the west side of Cook Inlet. Hilcorp is proposing an in-kind replacement of some 4,100 feet of 8-inch oil piping, originating at the Monopod, “to address an anomaly detected during in-line pipe inspection,” the division said.
The section to be replaced will be “de-inventoried, and the entire pipeline will be flushed, and appropriately cleaned as part of the replacement activities prior to cutting or disconnecting sub-sea piping,” with the replaced section to be abandoned in place.
Proposed activities are expected to begin about June 4 and last some 30 days.
Monopod In 2018 the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s Office of Pipeline Safety published an “Inventory of Upper Cook Inlet Pipeline Facilities and Identification of Regulators.”
A table of Trading Bay facilities included in that report shows two Monopod lines, A and B. The A line, which carries oil from the Monopod to the TBPF, is an 8.98-mile line built in 1966 as a natural gas line. 1966 is the year the Monopod platform was installed. The Monopod is the farthest north of the Trading Bay platforms (Monopod, King Salmon, Grayling, Steelhead and Dolly Vardon), and the pipeline from the Monopod to the TBPF is the longest - the others range in length from 5.32 to 7.15 miles.
The Monopod produced an average of 1,061 barrels per day in March, the most recent month for which data is available from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 10% of the average 10,537 bpd produced in Cook Inlet that month.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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