Flow of North Slope crude picks up
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Crude oil production on Alaska's North Slope is picking up again after equipment problems in Prudhoe Bay for weeks staunched the flow of oil bound for the West Coast.
Production is still about 20 percent below projections but headed in the right direction, said Chuck Logsdon, the state's chief petroleum economist.
"We're still kind of where we were, but we're picking up barrels every day," Logsdon said Tuesday.
North Slope crude oil production at the beginning of the week was just short of 900,000 barrels a day, which is about a 100,000-barrel-per-day increase from the week before, according to statistics by the Alaska Department of Revenue. In August, production averaged 723,000 barrels per day, a 24 percent drop from the year before.
The increases are the result of a Prudhoe Bay gathering center coming back online after equipment problems forced an unexpected shutdown of the plant for two weeks.
The gathering center - which separates oil from water and other materials that come out of the ground during drilling - was shut down after scheduled maintenance and has not operated at full capacity since, said Daren Beaudo, spokesman for Prudhoe Bay operator BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.
"Production from GC2 is back near normal rates, that means production at Prudhoe is getting back to normal," Beaudo said. "We expect to be back to full production this week."
Logsdon said the better-than-expected output of two non-Prudhoe Bay oil fields, Alpine and North Star, have also helped with production level recoveries. Alpine was producing 117,000 barrels a day, the most it has ever produced. North Star was producing 80,000 barrels a day when just a few months ago production was at 50,000 barrels.
"There are some reasons to believe we may get back on our expected track," Logsdon said. "The best thing would be to see how things play out until the end of the month."