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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Think4Yourself who wrote (74365)	9/23/2000 12:49:33 PM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95453

Alpine Field to Boost Alaska Crude Output By Richard Valdmanis NORTH SLOPE, Alaska (Reuters) - A row of small, red rigs stands quietly on the Alpine oil field in Alaska's tundra, ready to boost Phillips Petroleum's (NYSE:P - news) North Slope crude output by roughly a fifth when operators pull the levers sometime in the next two months. The field, originally scheduled to begin producing in August or September, is now slated to start its flow of 80,000 barrels per day in October or November, with nothing left in the way but mechanical testing, company officials said recently. ``On a project this big, a delay of a month or so is not considered significant,'' spokeswoman Dawn Patience said. ''Everything is basically live already. We're just double-checking before the start-up.'' By early next year the Alpine field is expected to raise Phillips' Alaskan oil production from its current range of 300,000 to 350,000 bpd to its target level of 400,000 barrels -- adding much needed supply to an inventory-starved United States and putting the company well in the lead of the region's other producers. The added supply -- combined with BP Amoco Plc's (NYSE:BP - news) (BP.L) upcoming 65,000 bpd Northstar project several miles to the east in the Beaufort Sea -- will also help stem a persistent decline in Alaskan oil production over the past several years. Alaskan oil production has fallen 9.7 percent to 913,000 barrels bpd since last year, according to the American Petroleum Institute, continuing more than a decade of decline as fields mature and contributing to a slide in total U.S. production to 50-year lows of 5.7 million bpd. Early tests on the oil in the 430-million-barrel Alpine reservoir, located a stone's throw from the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, shows the crude to be of a light quality rarely seen in the region -- 42 degrees API -- officials said. The API index is a scale developed by the American Petroleum Institute that measures the density of crude oil. The higher the degree, the lighter and easier the oil is to refine. Many crudes on the North Slope are closer to 20 degrees API, considered ``heavy.'' The presence of the large reservoir of the easier-to-refine light crude, comparing in the region only to BP's smaller Northstar find, has heightened hopes that exploration in the nearby National Petroleum Reserve this winter will uncover similar reservoirs. Both Phillips and BP Amoco are planning to do exploratory drilling in the reserve after ice hardens over the tundra this season, allowing rigs and other large machinery to travel over the roadless land. The Alpine reservoir was discovered in 1994 and the costs of development have reached roughly $1 billion, Patience said. Phillips is sole operator of the field, and owns 78 percent of the project, sharing the other 22 percent with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:APC - news) The 97-acre development is connected to the trans-Alaska Pipeline by a 35-mile line that crosses under the Colville River near the Inupiat village of Nuiqsut. Alpine has an expected life span of 25 years

To: Think4Yourself who wrote (74365)	9/24/2000 9:18:29 PM
From: The Barracuda™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

You wanna hear an outrageous story? In the 1980's one of the majors was trying to build a refinery in Calf. They get permits, then a different state agency would require another permit. The permits were only issued after court action by the major. Of course various "citizen" pressure groups sued the major to stop them from building the refinery. Finally, after about 10 yrs of govt obstruction, the major said in effect, "the hell with it, we wont build the refinery." Ya know what happened next? The State sued them for not building the refinery after they said they would!!