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Alaska’s Oil & Gas Industry
Background
The first major discovery of oil in Alaska was on the Kenai Peninsula at Swanson River in 1957. The U.S. Congress viewed that discovery as the foundation for a secure economic base in Alaska, and Statehood was granted two years later. However, it was the discovery of the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska’s North Slope in 1967 that established Alaska as a world-class oil and gas province. Two years later, the discovery of the nearby Kuparuk field, the second largest in North America after Prudhoe Bay, confirmed Alaska’s position. Four of the ten largest oilfields to date are located on the North Slope.
Since these discoveries, a series of major oil and gas fields have been developed along the central North Slope. Although production is declining at Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk, as well as other nearby fields, there is high potential for new discoveries in the Arctic, both onshore and offshore.
A U.S. Department of Energy report estimates the ultimate recoverable oil reserves on the North Slope to be 22.2 billion barrels, including reserves from existing fields as well as undiscovered resources. Natural gas estimates reach as high as 124 trillion cubic feet (tcf). A 2002 U.S. geological Survey assessment of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) resulted in a mean estimate of 10.6 billion barrels of oil and 61 tcf of natural gas. An assessment of the 1002 Area of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) gave a mean estimate of 10.4 billion barrels of technically-recoverable oil.
Offshore in the Beaufort Sea, the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimates the mean recoverable oil at 6.94 billion barrels and a mean projection of 32 tcf of natural gas. With huge geological structures, the continental shelf under the Chukchi Sea offers great promise. MMS estimates a mean of 15.4 billion barrels of oil and 77 tcf of gas. In February 2008, the second most successful oil and gas lease sale in the history of the United States took place, covering millions of acres in the Chukchi Sea. The sale raised a record $2.7 billion in revenue.
With the discovery of Prudhoe Bay and the construction of the trans-Alaska Pipeline, the oil and gas industry has become Alaska’s economic lifeline and a major secure source of domestic energy. North Slope oil fields accounted for an average of 20 percent of the nation’s domestic production between 1980 and 2000. Currently, Alaska accounts for nearly 13.4% of U.S. production.
The oil and gas industry generates an overwhelming majority of Alaska’s general fund revenues. In FY 2008, the state collected a record $11.2 billion in revenues from the oil industry, accounting for 93 percent of Alaska’s unrestricted general fund revenues. Revenue officials forecast FY 2009 revenue at $5.5 billion, providing 87 percent of unrestricted revenue. Revenue in FY 2010 is anticipated to be $5.8 billion, 88 percent of unrestricted revenue. Oil revenues pay for the state’s education system, transportation infrastructure, public health and safety services and a host of other programs throughout Alaska.
Alaska’s offshore waters and onshore prospects hold the potential to fuel the state’s economy for decades and to play a key role in ensuring America has the energy it needs until alternative sources become available on a large scale
Facts & Economic Impact
- Alaska's oil and gas industry has produced more than 16 billion barrels of oil and 6 billion cubic feet of natural gas, accounting for an average of 20 percent of the entire nation's domestic production (1980 - 2000). Currently, Alaska accounts for approximately 13.4% of U.S. production.
- Since 1957, the State of Alaska has collected approximately $90 billion from the oil and gas industry.
- The oil industry continues to be the largest source of unrestricted revenue to the state, accounting for 93 percent, or $11.2 billion, of all unrestricted state revenue in fiscal year 2008. Unrestricted general fund revenues from the oil and gas industry in fiscal year 2009 is expected to reach $5.5 billion, 87 percent of the anticipated unrestricted revenue.
- Since the completion of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, petroleum revenues to the State of Alaska have averaged 85 percent of the state's unrestricted general fund.
- When priced at $60 a barrel, the income stream from a barrel of oil is allocated as follows: State government receives 42%, federal government 20%, industry 38%.
- Even though state oil revenues reached record highs in FY 2009, production in Alaska has dropped 63 percent since hitting a peak of 2 millions barrels per day in 1988.
- As much as $60 billion in new investment may be required to slow the decline and develop new fields.
- The oil and gas industry accounts for more than 41,744 jobs, which is 9.4 percent of all employment in the state and 11.2 percent of all wages at $2.4 billion. Employment and payroll include direct impacts of 4,497 jobs and $643.8 million in payroll for the primary companies. Indirect and induced impacts include $5 billion in industry spending in Alaska on goods, services and capital, generating 8,410 support industry jobs and $769.2 million in payroll. An additional 28,837 jobs, with $987 million in payroll, are created throughout the rest of the state by support industry spending on payroll and purchasing, and by primary company employee spending.
- A new analysis by the University of Alaska Anchorage showed the oil industry supports as many as 110,000 jobs in Alaska (one-third of the state’s workforce), including funding for three-quarters of state government jobs. The report does not merely count the number of jobs that exist in each industry and its support sector. It estimates how many of Alaska’s 357,000 jobs rely on cash flow created by a specific sector.
- The Alaska Permanent Fund, worth $30 billion in spring 2009, was created in 1976 to set aside a portion of oil revenues for future generations. The fund has paid out more than $13 billion in dividends to Alaskans.
- The oil and gas industry has invested over $50 billion in North Slope and Cook Inlet infrastructure since the 1950s.
- Over 16 billion barrels of oil have been transported through the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).
- In 1974, the building of TAPS began, the largest construction project in the world. The original estimated cost was $900 million, but when it was completed in 1977, final costs were over $8 billion.
- The proposed Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Project, estimated to cost $30 billion, will be the largest
Production & Processing
- Four of the nation’s top ten producing oil fields are located on the North Slope. Alaska ranks second behind Texas in daily oil production.
- There are more than a dozen producing fields on the North Slope. Cumulative oil production from these fields is over 16 billion barrels. Ultimate production from Prudhoe Bay is expected to exceed 13 billion barrels.
- The long-term outlook for oil production on the North Slope is one of gradual decline supplemented with smaller field-size oil development with gas field development in or near existing infrastructure. The state expects average daily production in fiscal year 2009 to drop to 689,000 barrels per day and 665,000 barrels per day in fiscal year 2010.
- Current Alaska production accounts for approximately 13.4 percent of U.S. domestic production. The State currently estimates Prudhoe Bay contains an additional 2.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil plus another 426 million in reserves from satellite development. New investments and improved technologies may increase future reserve estimates.
- There are seven producing oil and gas fields on the Kenai Peninsula and offshore Cook Inlet. This area has produced a cumulative total of over 1.3 billion barrels of oil and 7.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The largest oil field, the McArthur River field, is expected to recover 639,000 barrels of oil. The largest gas field, the Kenai field, is ultimately projected to produce 2.427 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Cook Inlet oil production peaked at 230,000 barrels per day in 1970 to 12,369 barrels per day in 2008.
- Cook Inlet oil production plummeted to under 4,000 barrels per day in May 2009 because of the shutdown of the Drift River Terminal on the west side of the inlet due to volcanic eruptions at Mount Redoubt. Oil production from eight platforms on the west side of the inlet was shut in due to the eruptions. Oil fields that remained in operation were two onshore fields on the Kenai Peninsula and the Middle Ground Shoal field in Cook Inlet. All eight platforms on the west side of the Inlet have resumed production following the reopening of the Drift River Terminal in early August. However, oil now is piped to storage tanks at Granite Point and Trading Bay rather than to Drift River, although about every two weeks the oil is piped to tankers moored at a platform near the Drift River Terminal.
- Alaska has four refineries that produce gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for Alaska markets. Refineries are located in Nikiski, Valdez and near Fairbanks.
- A gas liquefaction plant at Nikiski, the only one of its type in North America, supplies liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan each month.
- LNG exports to Japan accounted for about a third of total Cook Inlet gas production. Total industrial use of Cook Inlet gas, including LNG exports, fertilizer manufacture and oil field operations, has remained constant at about 75 percent of total consumption since 1990. In recent years, Cook Inlet natural gas production has been steadily declining with current production at approximately 190 bcf per year.
Producers & Explorers
BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.: The same year Alaska became the 49th state, BP opened its first office in Anchorage. The challenges the company faces today may be different from 50 years ago, but BP is still focused on the future. Even in today’s difficult economy, BP has a long-term strategy in Alaska. The company is exploring with technologies like ultra extended-reach drilling at its Liberty development and cold heavy oil production wells. BP is renewing the North Slope infrastructure and making real progress on Denali – The Alaska Gas Pipeline. It will take success on many fronts to develop these resources, and it will take people.
BP’s Alaska workforce includes nearly 2,000 employees and some 6,400 contractors. More than 81 percent of BP Alaska’s employees call Alaska home. BP employees are active in the communities where they live and work. In 2008, employees support more than 700 community and education organizations, in addition to 150 youth teams, in about 40 Alaska communities through the BP Fabric of America and the employee youth team award programs. BP is looking ahead to the next 50 years.
ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc.: ConocoPhillips and its heritage companies have more than 50 years of history in Alaska. The company has major ownership in and operates the Kuparuk River Unit, the Colville River Unit (Alpine ), the Greater Mooses Tooth Unit (in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska) , as well as the North Cook Inlet Unit, the Kenai Liquefied Natural Gas Plant and the Beluga River Unit. Additionally, ConocoPhillips has major ownership in the Prudhoe Bay Unit, and owns 28 percent of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). ConocoPhillips has corporate offices in Anchorage where approximately one-third of the Alaska work force is located; the remainder work on the North Slope and in Kenai.
ConocoPhillips' net oil production in Alaska in 2008 was 244,000 barrels of oil per day and its net gas production was 97 million cubic feet per day. ConocoPhillips is the largest holder of federal and state leases in Alaska, holding interests in 1.48 million gross acres in NPR-A, and 2.76 million gross undeveloped acres in total outside of producing fields. As Alaska’s number one explorer, the company has participated in over 45 exploration wells since 2000, including more than 20 in NPR-A. Over the past 10 years, ConocoPhillips has reinvested more than $12 billion of direct capital in Alaska; these dollars contributed to the construction of the Alpine satellite oil fields, as well as continued development within the existing Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk areas.
ExxonMobil: One of Alaska’s top three oil producers, ExxonMobil has been working in the state for over 50 years, from Cook Inlet to the North Slope. The company’s core asset in Alaska is its 36 percent working interest in the Prudhoe Bay field where significant capital investments continue to be spent to enhance field performance and develop satellite fields. ExxonMobil owns 20 percent of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. The company holds the largest gas resource on the North Slope and is working with the state and other North Slope producers to commercialize the gas.
ExxonMobil, as operator, is advancing a project at Point Thomson to develop a major gas reservoir. Point Thomson, located 60 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, contains approximately 25 percent of the known gas resources on the North Slope, and will be essential to the success of an Alaska Gas pipeline project. It will be the highest-pressure gas cycling project in the world, employing world-class drill wells.
Point Thomson leaseholders have spent over $800 million on the project and plan on spending an additional $1.3 billion to bring the field into development. Current plans call for a phased development approach that will yield 10,000 barrels per day of liquid condensates in 2014. Natural gas will be recycled back into the reservoir until a gas pipeline to the Lower 48 is in operation.
With half of Point Thomson’s oil and gas extending offshore under the Beaufort Sea, the company will employ extended-reach drilling to capture the resource. Drilling will occur from onshore insulated pads with targets more than two miles offshore and nearly 11,000 feet deep. The project has required a major mobilization of contractors and equipment and is now employing 300 people. Initial drilling operations commenced in May 2009.
Chevron: Chevron's history in the State of Alaska goes back more than 100 years. The company has long held partnership interests in the Prudhoe Bay unit, the undeveloped Point Thomson unit, the Beluga Gas field in Cook Inlet, and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. Chevron was an early explorer in Cook Inlet and participated in the discovery and development of Swanson River Field on the Kenai Peninsula in the later 1950's. Chevron currently has assets in two primary Alaska basins: Cook Inlet and on the North Slope. Cook Inlet holdings consist of company-operated and non-operated gas fields, including Beluga River, Ninilchik, Grayling Gas Sands, Happy Valley and Ivan River, and company operated oil fields at Granite Point, Trading Bay and Macarthur River. Chevron's North Slope assets include working interests at Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk River and Endicott Fields. Chevron is a major supplier of gas for Southcentral Alaska through its Cook Inlet fields. It also owns major interests in the gas fields and prospects in the Ninilchik, Nikolaevsk and Deep Creek units.
Eni Petroleum: Since 2005, Eni has had a varied and growing exploration and development portfolio in Alaska, including leasehold interests in both onshore and offshore Alaska and in the offshore Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea areas. Eni currently has a total of 173 leases in Alaska with 89 leases being located in the federal OCS and 84 in the State of Alaska lands and waters. Eni is operator on 99 of these leases or 57% of its total leasehold interests in Alaska.
Eni has several onshore exploration opportunities in Alaska, two of the most notable being its Maggiore Prospects located southwest of the Kuparuk River Unit and covering over 142,000 acres and the North Tarn Prospect located on the west flank of the Kuparuk River Unit and covering more than 10,000 acres. In the Chukchi Sea, Eni holds a 40% interest in leases covering 14 OCS offshore blocks and a 100% interest in leases covering another four OCS offshore blocks. In the Beaufort Sea, Eni has a 40% interest in leases covering 64 OCS offshore blocks and an 80% interest in leases covering another 7 OCS offshore blocks.
Eni owns 100% working interest in and is Operator of the Nikaitchuq Field, located on-offshore the North Slope, immediately north of Kuparuk and initially contained 12,968 acres encompassing eight state oil and gas leases. The Nikaitchuq Unit now contains 18 leases. The State of Alaska sanctioned the Nikaitchuq project in January 2008. Nikaitchuq will be the first development project operated by Eni in Alaska. Successful appraisal drilling confirmed the potential viability of the project with first oil expected to flow by the end of 2010.
Eni has conducted activities from the onshore drill site at Oliktok Point. Plans for that drill site include a standalone processing facility and a maximum of 26 wells. Eni plans to use Spy Island as a second offshore drillsite, which will accommodate more than fifty additional wells, remotely operated and connected to Oliktok Point by a sub-sea flowline and utility bundle. Eni has undertaken substantial exploration operations under approved plans of exploration and development.
Marathon Oil Corporation: Marathon has been exploring for, and developing hydrocarbons in Alaska for more than 55 years, with exploration activities focused on natural gas. With offices in Anchorage, the Company ranks as one of the largest natural gas producers and is the most active drillers in south central Alaska along the Kenai Peninsula. Marathon's Alaska net gas sales in 2008 averaged 126 million cubic feet per day, representing 28 percent of the Company's total U.S. gas sales. In 2008, Marathon drilled nine production wells in the Cook Inlet region in the Beaver Creek, Ninilchik and Kenai Gas fields, and also progressed exploration efforts with the Sunrise prospect. Additionally, Marathon has a long history in LNG projects, partnering in 1969 to pioneer the first, and currently only, LNG liquefaction and export operation from North America. Marathon has a 30 percent ownership interest in the Kenai LNG plant. Marathon and its employees are committed to providing long-term reliable natural gas in a safe, clean and responsible manner.
Shell: Shell returned to Alaska in 2005 to participate in Beaufort Lease Sale 202, signaling the fist major offshore activity in Alaska in decades and a new era of exploration in the Arctic. As a result of that sale and subsequent partnerships, Shell now owns outright or holds an equity position in 160 leases in the Beaufort Sea - stretching east from Harrison Bay to an area north of ANWR. The leases Shell picked up in 2005 included Unocal’s Hammerhead discovery and ARCO’s Kuvlum discovery.
In February 2008, Shell dominated the largest lease sale in Alaska history and the second most successful oil and gas lease sale in the history of the nation, picking up 275 lease blocks in the Chukchi Sea for $2.1 billion. Over the last three years Shell has dedicated a great deal of resources to acquiring 3D seismic data and baseline science near its Chukchi and Beaufort leases. The company has also made public its interest in other opportunities across Alaska, including an upcoming lease sale in the North Aleutian Basin.
While the subject of OCS exploration and development is new to many Alaskans, it's not to Shell. Shell pioneered the Cook Inlet and throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, drilled the majority of the exploratory wells in the Alaska OCS - including wells in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas as well as the St. George Basin, Bearing Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. Shell's exploration program in the Beaufort led to the Northstar and Liberty fields.
As throughput in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline continues to decline, many look to the Alaska OCS as a critical new source of oil. A recent economic study completed by Northern Economics and ISER estimates the oil and gas reserves in the Alaska offshore could exceed those of Prudhoe Bay.
The Independents
For many years, basic economics severely restricted the number of companies with the capability to invest in Alaska’s oil and gas industry. The sheer magnitude of capital required to develop remote and huge Arctic oil and gas fields limited participants to the major companies that could afford to invest. As the state’s giant fields mature, a new set of investment opportunities is emerging in smaller, more marginal fields that remain to be developed. With these new opportunities, a new set of investors, known as the independent producers, have turned their sights on Alaska and these new prospects.
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation: Houston-based Anadarko is one of the largest independent exploration and production companies in the nation, with extensive operations in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico and the midcontinent region around the Rockies. Anadarko is the third largest leaseholder on state lands, after ConocoPhillips and Chevron, with nearly 530,000 acres across the northern half of Alaska. With additional acreage on federal and Native corporation lands, Anadarko has access to more land in Alaska than any other company, approximately 4.7 million acres.
Anadarko is a 22% partner with ConocoPhillips in the Alpine field and surrounding satellites. Currently, the company’s extensive multi-year exploration effort in the western foothills of the Brooks Range continues. In 2008, the company’s search for natural gas in this region included completion of the Gubik No. 3 well and further drilling on the Chandler No. 1 well, both on Arctic Slope Regional Corporation land east of the Colville River near Umiat. This past winter the company used two rigs for three wells, including Gubik No. 4. All targeted natural gas. Meanwhile, the company is planning to drill the Wolf Creek No. 4 well in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, about 40 miles west of Umiat.
Armstrong Alaska: An affiliate of Denver-based Armstrong Oil and Gas, Armstrong Alaska partnered in 2002 with Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska in the Beaufort Sea Oooguruk prospect, and it had been working in partnership with Kerr-McGee on several projects. However, Armstrong sold all of its oil and gas assets on the Slope to Eni Petroleum, but the company has returned to Alaska to buy leases in the Cook Inlet basin and in the Arctic. Armstrong Cook Inlet LLC has taken over as operator of the North Fork gas unit and has 18,000 acres of surrounding and nearby leases. North Fork is seen as one of several gas fields that could eventually justify infrastructure extensions into the Southern Kenai Peninsula. The company has drilled a well in an undeveloped gas field on the southern Kenai Peninsula and is looking to develop that field once a pipeline is built to bring the gas to market. New affiliate 70 & 148 LLC (named for the latitude and longitude of Prudhoe Bay) picked up more than 200,000 acres on the North Slope in a state areawide lease sale in October 2008.
Aurora Gas LLC: Aurora Gas was formed in 2000 to explore and develop natural gas related opportunities in Alaska, with operations currently in the Cook Inlet. The company’s primary focus is on shallow gas prospects in or near known oil and gas accumulations. It also has interests in several oil prospects on the Kenai Peninsula and the west side of the Cook Inlet. Aurora Gas has acquired more than 142,000 acres of leasehold area, approximately 21,000 acres of mineral estate, and a sizeable inventory of development and exploration prospects throughout the Cook Inlet basin. The company is the operator of the Kaloa, Lone Creek, Moquawkie, Three Mile Creek and Nicolai Creek gas fields on the west side of the Cook Inlet. The company currently does not have plans for new exploration drilling.
Pacific Energy Resources: Pacific Energy Resources Ltd filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2009 after the decline in crude oil prices made it difficult to pay its debt. The company said debt from past acquisitions and poor capital market conditions had cut into liquidity and cash flow, making it impossible to operate its business and invest in assets to increase oil production. After buying Forest Oil’s assets in Southcentral Alaska in August 2007, the Long Beach-based company has been looking to make Cook Inlet a core area of its operations. The company produces 3,000 barrels of oil per day in California and 5,900 barrels per day in Alaska. Pacific Energy produces Cook Inlet oil from its Osprey platform on the Redoubt Shoal field and from the onshore West McArthur River field. The company had been working on moving forward with exploration of its Cook Inlet acreage it acquired from Forest.
AVCG/Brooks Range Petroleum: Brooks Range Petroleum (BRPC), a subsidiary of AVCG, LLC, operates on behalf of a Joint Venture (JV) including working interest owners AVCG, LLC, TG World Energy Inc., Dana Petroleum PLC and Ramshorn Investments Inc., to provide land, exploration and operation services for Alaska exploration. The JV controls blocks of contiguous leases covering approximately 260,000 acres on the North Slope. The 2008 drilling season included drilling one well called North Shore #1 in the Gwydyr Bay area and one well with two well branches called Tofkat #1, #1A and #1B respectively near the Native village of Nuiqsut. More than 48,000 feet was drilled by the JV, which is more than any other exploration company drilled in Alaska in 2008. BRPC has completed a seismic shoot that covers more than 200 square miles over the core of the Tofkat prospect area, which is being processed and analyzed in preparation for the its 2010 drilling program.
Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska: Pioneer Natural Resources is a large U.S. independent oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in Irving, TX. Pioneer has operations in Alaska, the Lower 48, Tunisia and South Africa. In Alaska, Pioneer is the 70 percent working interest owner and operator of the Oooguruk Unit on the North Slope and the 100 percent working interest owner and operator of the Cosmopolitan Unit in Cook Inlet.
Oooguruk is being developed in the shallow waters of the Beaufort Sea northwest of the Kuparuk River Unit. First production from the Unit occurred in June 2008 and a multi-year development drilling program is currently underway. The net resource potential at Oooguruk is 120-150 million barrels of oil and net production is expected to peak at 10-14 thousand barrels of oil per day. Oooguruk is the first field operated by an independent company on the North Slope.
Cosmopolitan is to be developed from onshore north of Anchor Point on the Kenai Peninsula. Pioneer drilled the Hansen 1A-L1 appraisal well in late 2007 and expects to drill a second appraisal well in 2010. The Hansen 1A-L1 is the longest extended reach well in Cook Inlet with a total depth of 22,650 ft. Cosmopolitan has a gross resource potential of 30-50 million barrels of oil.
Petro-Canada: Calgary-based Petro-Canada has been building its land position on the North Slope since the mid-1990s. In 2005, the company announced an exploration partnership in the Brooks Range foothills with Anadarko Petroleum. Currently it has a 50 percent interest in the 1.5 million-acres it shares with Anadarko. Both companies hold a strong land position in the gas-prone area, much of which is contiguous. Petro Canada has also formed a partnership with FEX, a subsidiary of Talisman Energy. Both companies have cross-assigned a majority of their NPR-A leaseholdings, covering about 1.2 million acres. Petro-Canada’s net position in NPR-A is now over 500,000 acres.
XTO Energy: The operator of the Middle Ground Shoal field in Cook Inlet is XTO Energy. Although the field came on line in 1967, XTO has achieved almost constant production since buying two state leases and the field’s A and C platforms from Shell in 1998. XTO has increased field reserves by 42 percent and there are likely another 10 to 15 years of production remaining. The field is currently producing about 3,650 barrels of oil per day with reserves estimated at 24 million barrels.
Talisman Energy/FEX: Based in Calgary, Talisman Energy bought out Total E&P USA’s Caribou exploration prospect inside NPR-A in 2004 and picked up its own leases in the petroleum reserve later that year. Initially operating as Fortuna and later FEX, the company has also picked up state leases in the Beaufort Sea. The company has put its Alaska drilling program on hold for at least two seasons after the Bureau of Land Management deferred a Northeast NPR-A lease sale from 2007 to sometime in the last half of 2008. Although that sale was held in September 2008, the company could not get access to parts of the Barrow Arch, a geologic feature associated with major North Slope fields. The arch extends offshore and beneath Teshekpuk Lake. The federal government deferred leasing around the lake for ten years, blocking access to the area. The company has drilled five wells in NPR-A and holds 1.1 million acres in leases on the North Slope, including both federal and state land. Talisman conducted a 3-D seismic program in Smith Bay north of Teshekpuk Lake in 2008. It is considering resumption of exploration drilling during the winter seasons of 2010-2011.
Other Exploration Companies Active In Alaska
Escopeta Oil & Gas (Cook Inlet), Andex Resources (Nenana Basin), Storm Cat Energy Corporation (Cook Inlet), Savant Alaska (North Slope), UltraStar (North Slope)
Alyeska Pipeline Service Company
Alyeska is responsible for operating and maintaining the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). The company was formed in 1970 and acts as agent for five companies which own the pipeline: BP Pipelines (Alaska)Inc. 46.93%, ConocoPhillips Transportation Alaska, Inc. 28.29%, ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, 20.34%, Unocal Pipeline Company, 1.36%, and Koch Alaska Pipeline Company, L.L.C., 3.08%. Alyeska directly employs about 800 people with a total of 1,600 direct and indirect employment associated with the pipeline.
The 800-mile, 48-inch pipeline is one of the largest pipeline systems in the world. In what it calls strategic reconfiguration, the company has undertaken a multi-year project to upgrade the pipeline’s pump stations and control systems to enhance overall pipeline safety and reliability. Alyeska has successfully transported more than 15 billion barrels of oil to market.
The American Petroleum Institute awarded Alyeska its 2008 Distinguished Operator Award, which is among the oil industry’s top honors and is reserved for pipeline operators that demonstrate excellence in safety, environment and integrity.
Alaska Refiners
Flint Hills Resources (North Pole)
Petro Star, Inc., (North Pole, Valdez)
Tesoro Alaska Company (Nikiski)
Web Links
Sources
- Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil & Gas
- Alaska Department of Labor
- U.S. Department of the Interior
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Alaska Oil & Gas Association
- Alyeska Pipeline Service Company
- Petroleum News
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