North Slope saw big production decline September and October compared with year earlier B

Alaska North Slope production tipped up in October as cooler temperatures set in on the slope, but the numbers for both October and September were down significantly year-over-year compared with the same months of 2022.

The production data is from the Alaska Department of Revenue.

Total production averaged 468,500 barrels per day in October and 453,588 barrels per day in September, up in October because of the expected seasonal increase but down substantially year-over-year from October and September, 2023.

Year-over-year production was down 10,704 barrels per day on average between October 2022 and October 2023 and down 18,931 barrels per day year-over-year for September 2023 compared with September 2022.

The increase in October from September was typical. Summer production is usually depressed because production facilities operate less efficiently in warmer temperatures, so a seasonal bump up is expected in September and October with cooler autumn temperatures.

The annual declines, year-over-year, however, are more concerning to state officials because they imply a return to the multi-year declines seen over several decades from the 1990s until 2014 and 2015 .

That’s when changes in the state’s production tax law resulted in more drilling by companies and more production on the slope,which flattened the decline, at least temporarily.

Two of the five producing areas of the slope – the Alpine and Lisburne fields – were generally stable year-over-year, although Alpine was slightly down and Lisburne, a small field, slightly up.

The larger Kuparuk River field producing area was down about 4,000 barrels per day in both September and October year-over-year.

The biggest decline was in the Prudhoe Bay field, the largest on the North Slope, which produces more that half of the production from the slope. Prudhoe dropped 4,464 barrels per day in October against the October, 2022 average, and 19,838 barrels per day in September compared with the September, 2022 average.

Oil and gas processing plants at Prudhoe are the oldest on the slope, having been in operation for 46 years since the field startup in 1977, and are more affected by the seasonal temperature swings and changes in operating efficiency.

Hilcorp Energy, the operator at Prudhoe Bay, has been able to keep the field production almost level since taking over from BP in 2019 through an aggressive programs of well remediation and maintenance but this strategy typically has only shorter-term effects.

Hilcorp is operator on behalf of itself as an owner as well as ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil, which also own shares of Prudhoe.

The Kuparuk River and Alpine fields are operated and owned by ConocoPhillips but facilities in both fields process oil from nearby smaller reservoirs and that production is included in the average for the field where the processing facilities are located.

For the longer term, North Slope production will increase by an expected 80,000 barrels per day when Australia-based Santos Ltd. and Repsol, based in Madrid, complete the first phase of their new Pikka project, which is now in construction. This is expected in mid-2026 but it could happen earlier in the year, Santos has said.

A second phase for Pikka, which will boost output to 120,000 barrels per day is anticipated but the decision hinges on the companies’ evaluation of production performance of wells drilled into the Nanushuk, which will be a new producing formation for the North Slope.

Meanwhile, ConocoPhillips is awaiting a decision by an Alaska U.S. District Court judge on lawsuits field against the federal government over the company’s Willow project. If Judge Sharon Gleason gives the go-ahead, which is expected, construction will begin on Willow this winter with first production at 180,000 barrels per day, expected in 2029. Willow is on federal land in the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska west of the large producing fields of the slope, which are on state of Alaska-owned lands.

The lawsuits filed on Willow by U.S. environmental groups are against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which administers lands and leasing in the 23-million-acre NPR-A.