With summer plant maintenance mostly complete, North Slope production rose in August

North Slope production was higher in August as annual maintenance on production facilities was completed. Summer is “turnaround” time for the big oil and gas processing plants on the slope, a time when production is cut back to allow major upgrades to be done along with a number of minor “fixes.”

The Alpine field, for example, was offline for much of July and was restarted in early August. That put a big dent on July oil output, but August was better.

Average slope production for August was 447,066 barrels per day compared with 403,340 barrels per day, on average, in July, according to Alaska Department of Revenue production data.

The largest factor affecting output was the restart of the Alpine field on August 1 after a 20-day shutdown in July 10 to allow ConocoPhillips, the field operator, to conduct a major overhaul of the field’s central processing facility.

Alpine field production was ramped up gradually by ConocoPhillipas to average 37,800 barrels per day in August compared with 11,349 barrels per day in July, which reflected the three-week field shutdown.

In comparison, the field averaged 47,524 barrels per day last January, during the winter peak production season for the slope.

In general, production facilities are less efficient on the North Slope during summer because of warmer temperatures but more efficient and capable of processing more oil in winter.

Last January the slope averaged 498,176 barrels per day in January compared with 447,066 barrels per day in August, after most of the major 2021 facility upgrades had been completed.

The Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River fields, the two largest producing fields on the slope, generally maintained expected production in August with the expected fluctuation due to seasonality and maintenance.

Prudhoe average production was up 26,735 barrels per day in August over July, and Kuparuk was down 11,101 barrels per day when compared with July averages. Prudhoe Bay is operated by Hilcorp while Kuparuk is operated by ConocoPhillips.

The smaller Lisburne field, also operated by Hilcorp, averaged 20,014 b/d, up from 18,376 barrels per day in July but down from the seasonal peak of 21,704 barrels per day averaged in January.

Despite the seasonal trends slope production is gradually trending downward as the larger producing fields mature.

For example, in January 2016 North Slope production averaged 549,679 barrels per day compared with 498,176 barrels per day in January 2021.

Production is expected to increase in early 2022, however, with two new ConocoPhillips projects near completion and expected to be producing by year-end or in early 2022.

One is Fiord West, an undeveloped deposit in the Kuparuk River field operated by ConocoPhillips, which is expected to add 20,000 barrels per day at peak.

The second is GMT-2, another ConocoPhillips project in the northeast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, which is projected to produce 35,000 barrels per day to 40,000 barrels per day at peak.

Part of the new production will offset the underlying continued decline of the larger, older fields, but the expected net effect will be an increase in 2022 daily production from the slope.

Two larger projects in advanced planning that had been expected to add even more production in 2025 and 2026 are now facing uncertainties, however.

Willow, a major project in the northeast NPR-A planned by ConocoPhillips, suffered a setback in August when a federal district judge in Alaska voided key government permits in a lawsuit brought by conservation groups.

ConocoPhillips had expected to make a Final Investment Decision on the multi-billion-dollar Willow project by year-end, but that timetable is now disrupted by the court decision, which will cause the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency managing NPR-A, to do a review of environmental studies on Willow.

Willow’s peak production has been estimated at 160,000 barrels per day with an anticipated startup in 2025 or 2026.