ConocoPhillips cuts oil production at its Alpine field due to gas leak

ConocoPhillips has cut oil production at its CD-1 drill site in the Alpine oil field after a gas leak was detected at the site, which is on the North Slope.

The leak was discovered a week ago and the facility partly-evaculated. The company has not said, as of Monday, that the leak has been stopped or the source identified,

“At this point, we are still assessing production impacts from Alpine, and we have essential personnel at CD1 to safely monitor and assess the conditions of the well pad,” company spokesperson Michael Walter said in an email.

Alpine was producing 46,851 barrels on March 13, down from over 50,000 barrels per day on a week earlier, according to production data posted by the Alaska Department of Revenue.

In an earlier statement the company said it is doing air monitoring to detect gas at the production facility as well as the nearby Inupiat village of Nuiqsut, which is eight miles away. ConocoPhillips also reported earlier that some of its personnel at CD1 were moved out of the facility as a precaution.

The company said that air monitoring had detected no presence of gas away from the production pad.

CD1 is one of several drill sites producing in the Alpine field, as well as two sites in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, but CD1 is a critical facility in the because it is where crude oil from five production pads come together to be transported to a main pipeline to the nearby Kuparuk River field and Pump Station One at the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which is in the Prudhoe Bay field.

There was concern earlier that because all production from the field goes through CD1 the 50,000 b/d produced at Alpine would be shut in, said a state official familiar with the situation.

ConocoPhillips has obviously devised a plan to keep most of rhe field production flowing, the official said, who asked not to be identified.

Grace Salazar, special assistant at the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, said her agency has begun an investigation into the gas leak and its cause.

Because the AOGCC is a quasi-judicial regulatory agency it cannot comment on an incident under active investigation, Salazar said.