Oil's busy summer: money spent, but not enough on exploration and production, some say.

• Author: Bradner, Mike
• Position: OIL & GAS

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

North Slope oil operators are coming off one of the busiest summer seasons in years, much of it related to major turnaround, or maintenance projects, in the Prudhoe Bay, the largest producing field on the Slope.

BP Exploration Inc. is the operator at the Prudhoe field. The company also had projects under way at the North Star and Endicott fields, two offshore fields where BP is also operater.

ConocoPhillips said it had summer projects at the in the Kuparuk River and Alpine fields, although these were less extensive than the big projects at Prudhoe Bay and were timed to coincide with two short shutdowns of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, which allowed Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. to do upgrades on the pipeline.

It wasn't all major maintenance on the Slope last summer, however. ExxonMobil continued its work at the Point Thomson field 60 miles east of Prudhoe Bay where two wells were drilled to depths allowed by government agencies during the summer. Drilling will resume this fall, after freeze-up on the Slope.

The drilling required a major barge support operation, however, which kept tug crews busy on a shuttle between Prudhoe and Point Thomson.

Another big project under way is the preparation for BP's drilling on its offshore Liberty project, which will be developed with production wells drilled from onshore. Last winter BP and its contractors made improvements to support the Liberty drilling. This included enlarging one of two artificial gravel islands in the Endicott field to support a large drill rig, and the strengthening of a bridge.

RIG ASSEMBLED

This summer the drill rig was brought to the Slope in pieces by barge and landed at Endicott. Since then crews have been busy assembling it. It is one of the world's largest and most powerful drill rigs, and it was built for BP's Liberty project by Parker Drilling Co. Parker also will operate the rig and drill Liberty's long, extended-reach wells.

The production wells drilled at Liberty will reach out as far as eight miles to the reservoir from the surface location of the rig.

In late summer Eni Oil and Gas also began gearing up to resume drilling on its Nikaitchuq offshore field after winter sets in on the Slope. Eni suspended work on Nikaitchuq development last year after oil prices plummeted and the company's budgets were hit by the recession. Activity has now resumed.

Nikaitchuq is a shallow oil deposit northwest of the Prudhoe Bay field that extends a few miles offshore. Eni's initial plan is to develop it with wells drilled from onshore, but eventually an artificial gravel island will be built in shallow offshore waters to support additional wells.

...