THE LINK: OCTOBER 2023 31 and modest costs with the favorable location of its project near existing infrastructure. Other operators on the slope working to develop new production. Eni Oil and Gas is doing work to shore up production at its small Nikaitchuq field on the Beaufort Sea coast north of the Kuparuk field. Nikaitchuq is produced mainly from a viscous oil deposit, which is heavier and thicker than conventional light crude oil produced on the Slope. Viscous oil is more difficult to process than light oil and Eni designed and built a process plant designed for that oil. The plant was designed to process 40,000 barrels per day, but production averaged only 15,962 barrels per day in June and has dropped 10% in the last year, according to Petroleum News, an Alaska industry publication. To develop more oil, Eni launched an initiative to tap potential resources in federal Offshore Continental Shelf leases north of its state of Alaska Beaufort Sea leases, but backed away from the plan after encountering problems in drilling a long extended-reach horizontal well, and after Shell, its partner in the OCS, backed out. Eni has refocused on further drilling on its state leases with the approval of the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas. The federal OCS leases have meanwhile been dropped, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has confirmed. North Slope production dipped in August as a seasonal summer decline in output continued, according to data from the Alaska Department of Revenue. Total slope liquids production averaged 423,290 barrels per day, down from 430,743 in July, and about 74,000 below the January average of 499,016 barrels per day. A summer drop in output is typical for the North Slope because field production facilities operate at lower efficiency than in the cold winter months. Also, summer field maintenance results in period production shutdowns of facilities, which usually last a few days, but which brings monthly averages down. The bulk of the decline was in the Prudhoe Bay field, the largest on the North Slope, and where production plants were built in the 1970s. Prudhoe Bay, which is operated by Hilcorp Energy, dropped to an average of 255,363 barrels per day in August from 266,684 in July, and 321,172 in January. One other large producing field, Kuparuk River, also declined, from 101,460 barrels per day in July to 99,987 in August. In January, Kuparuk averaged 104,984 barrels per day. The Alpine field showed an increase over July in the data but that was because summer facility maintenance brought the Alpine average down that month. ConocoPhillips is the operator at the Alpine and Kuparuk fields. Alpine has generally been holding steady at 50,000 barrels per day or slightly above because incremental new projects in the field offset its natural decline. The small Lisburne field in the eastern part of Prudhoe Bay has also been holding steady at an average of 19,028 barrels per day in August compared with 19,055 in July and 18,405 in January. Hilcorp Energy is the operator of the Lisburne field. — Tim Bradner
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