North Slope can't make up oil shortfall
News-Miner - Past News
By SAM BISHOP News-Miner Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON--Prudhoe Bay can't offer any relief from petroleum shortages caused by hurricane damage on the Gulf Coast, a spokesman for the oil field operator said Wednesday.
"We're producing as much oil as we possibly can," said Daren Beaudo, with BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. in Anchorage.
Prudhoe is providing an average of about 450,000 to 475,000 barrels a day, Beaudo said.
Production at other North Slope fields just about match that amount, so an average of 910,000 barrels a day had entered the trans-Alaska oil pipeline as of July this year, according to Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.
The North Slope accounts for about 17 percent of domestic production, which the federal Energy Information Administration listed at 5.4 million barrels per day at the end of August.
Twenty-nine percent of domestic oil, or 1.56 million barrels a day, has been coming from the Gulf of Mexico. However, the federal Minerals Management Service reported Tuesday that 95 percent of the Gulf's crude production had stopped.
That took a substantial slice out of the 15.8 million barrels of crude accepted each day at the nation's refineries, according to the EIA data.
BP operates the Prudhoe Bay oil field for the owner companies, the largest of which are ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil. Spokesmen for those companies either couldn't be reached or referred questions to Beaudo.
Beaudo said BP is doing all it can to produce Prudhoe's oil at the maximum allowable rate, under the regulatory eye of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
"It's our obligation to the state, which owns that oil, and to our shareholders as well," he said.
The field is in a natural decline, though.
"This year we're drilling over 100 wells in order to target oil in smaller pockets," Beaudo said. "We actually increased the budget this year to take a look at stimulation of existing wells that may have been shut in because they were poor producers or they needed certain kinds of repairs."
Beaudo said BP's share of Prudhoe's oil goes exclusively to the West Coast, delivered by tankers to refineries in Long Beach, Calif., and at Cherry Point in Washington.
By SAM BISHOP News-Miner Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON--Prudhoe Bay can't offer any relief from petroleum shortages caused by hurricane damage on the Gulf Coast, a spokesman for the oil field operator said Wednesday.
"We're producing as much oil as we possibly can," said Daren Beaudo, with BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. in Anchorage.
Prudhoe is providing an average of about 450,000 to 475,000 barrels a day, Beaudo said.
Production at other North Slope fields just about match that amount, so an average of 910,000 barrels a day had entered the trans-Alaska oil pipeline as of July this year, according to Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.
The North Slope accounts for about 17 percent of domestic production, which the federal Energy Information Administration listed at 5.4 million barrels per day at the end of August.
Twenty-nine percent of domestic oil, or 1.56 million barrels a day, has been coming from the Gulf of Mexico. However, the federal Minerals Management Service reported Tuesday that 95 percent of the Gulf's crude production had stopped.
That took a substantial slice out of the 15.8 million barrels of crude accepted each day at the nation's refineries, according to the EIA data.
BP operates the Prudhoe Bay oil field for the owner companies, the largest of which are ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil. Spokesmen for those companies either couldn't be reached or referred questions to Beaudo.
Beaudo said BP is doing all it can to produce Prudhoe's oil at the maximum allowable rate, under the regulatory eye of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
"It's our obligation to the state, which owns that oil, and to our shareholders as well," he said.
The field is in a natural decline, though.
"This year we're drilling over 100 wells in order to target oil in smaller pockets," Beaudo said. "We actually increased the budget this year to take a look at stimulation of existing wells that may have been shut in because they were poor producers or they needed certain kinds of repairs."
Beaudo said BP's share of Prudhoe's oil goes exclusively to the West Coast, delivered by tankers to refineries in Long Beach, Calif., and at Cherry Point in Washington.
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