The Big League.

Can't tell the players without a program. Alaska's oil patch has so many names, even Bud Abbott couldn't keep them straight. For instancy Duck Island is a unit, Endicott is a field--and they're the same place! Add in the retirees, like the Sag Delta field that quit producing in 1985, and the minor leaguers waiting to be called up, like Pikka and Liberty, and the bench of exploration prospects with quirky monikers like Quokka, Alkaid, and Talitha, and... well, confusion is understandable.

Alaskans ought to have basic knowledge of the state's biggest tax-paying industry, so to keep the lineup manageable, this primer focuses on producing fields on the North Slope. That's less than a dozen, or as many as a baseball team (counting the designated hitter and manager). Two other active fields--Walakpa and Barrow, southwest and southeast of Utqiagvik, respectively--produce natural gas for the North Slope Borough. But these eleven contribute to the flow of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System.

Next season, the Cook Inlet league!

PRODUCTION STATS

Colville River

Landowner: State | Federal | Native Operator: ConocoPhillips Alaska Discovered: 1994 First Production: 2000 Total Output: 636 million BOE Oil Wells: 144 Average Output: 25,000 BOE/day Ownership Interest: 100% ConocoPhillips Alaska

Also called Colville Delta or simply Alpine after the unit's flagship Alpine field, a centralized production facility enables extended development into the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska. Includes satellite fields Fiord West Kuparuk and Nanuq. Drilling pad CD2 tapped the Qannik pool in 2008. The CD5 pad began producing in 2015 from Native leases. The Doyon 26 rig set a record in 2022 for longest horizontal well drilled on land, 35,526 feet, at the Fiord West Kuparuk satellite field.

PRODUCTION STATS

Badami

Landowner: State Operator: Savant Alaska Discovered: 1990 First Production: 1998 Total Output: 10.2 million BOE Oil Wells: 21 Average Output: 1,100 BOE/day Ownership Interest: 100% Savant Alaska

Connected by a 25-mile pipeline to Prudhoe Bay, but no permanent road. Colorado-based Savant redeveloped the field in 2008 for BP Exploration Alaska, ending a five-year production hiatus, and took over the unit in 2011. Savant is now a subsidiary of Glacier Oil and Gas, which was acquired in January by a Texas-based venture formed by Pontem Energy and Sweat Equity Partners. The unit contains an estimated 120 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) in recoverable reserves.

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