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HILCORP TARGETS MAJOR PRUDHOE DEVELOPMENT
cous oil found in ConocoPhilllips’ Kuparuk River field, except that West Sak is even shallower and cooler and has presented its own technology challenges for Cono- coPhillips and, earlier, ARCO Alaska. Donovan said the polymer injection at Milne Point was developed with the help of scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Institute of Northern Engineer- ing. The project now involves injection of 58,000 barrels per day of the polymer, which is done in a pattern alternating with water. Hilcorp is also now producing a lim- ited amount of oil from the Ugnu forma- tion that underlines large parts of Milne Point. Ugnu is true heavy oil that is dens- er and colder, because it is even shallower than the viscous oil in the Shrader Bluff deposit. The deposit is a very large oil resource with some estimates exceeding 20 billion barrels of oil in place or locked in the res- ervoir rock. Producing it, and getting the oil to flow, is the main challenge. Where producing companies typically see 40% or more recovery of oil from conventional North Slope fields, the estimates for heavy
oil accumulations like Ugnu are much low- er, at 10% or even less. UAF’s Institute of Northern Engineer- ing has been involved in this, too, with a new process to produce the heavy oil with a solvent injected alternating with water and a polymer. This has had promising results in laboratory studies at the university. Hilcorp is also actively working to boost two smaller North Slope fields the compa- ny acquired from the Italian state-owned company Eni S.p.A last year, Nikaitchchuq and Oooguruk. These are offshore fields in shallow Beaufort Sea waters just north of the Alaska coast. Nikaitchchuq produces viscous as well as conventional oil and Hil- corp hopes its polymer production technol- ogy successfully used at Milne Point may be equally successful there. “We have hopes that this can produce Milne Point type results,” Donovan said. Meanwhile, major maintenance is at the top of the list for any field operator, and this summer Hilcorp did a major “turnaround” project at Prudhoe Bay. The project in- volved taking Gathering Center-2, or GC- 2, on Prudhoe Bay’s west end, offline for about a month, which temporarily reduced
Prudhoe Bay production by 60,000 barrels per day. It has since been restored. The Prudhoe turnaround was a major project, that involved about 125,000 man- hours of labor and 500 people who per- formed 385 “work items,” Donovan said. The resulting work will improve gas quality going to the gas plants and upgrade gas de- hydration systems to allow more oil to be produced from production pads on Prud- hoe’s west side. “Hilcorp is proud to reach completion of its largest ever turnaround at Prudhoe Bay, which was supported by our team of employees and hundreds of contractors and operators working around the clock this summer. This five-week planned turn- around was completed safely and ahead of schedule, and underscores Hilcorp’s deep commitment to the field,” Hilcorp Corpo- rate Manager of Government and Public Affairs Matt Shuckerow said. Hilcorp owns 27.1% of Prudhoe Bay, the portion previously held by BP. ConocoPhil- lips and ExxonMobil are working interest owners in the field, with 36.5% owned by ConocoPhillips Alaska and 36.4% held by ExxonMobil Alaska.
Company continues its strong push to invest in mature producing fields BY TIM BRADNER HILCORP ALASKA HOPES TO REPLICATE ITS SUCCESS AT MILNE POINT FIELD IN THE LARGE- LY UNDEVELOPED WEST END OF THE PRUDHOE BAY FIELD. HILCORP IS THE OPERATOR AND PART OWNER OF PRUDHOE BAY WITH PARTNERS CON- OCOPHILLIPS AND EXXONMOBIL. Hilcorp is doing what it does best on the North Slope, investing aggressively and ap- plying new technologies in mature oil and gas fields to boost production, in this case 48-year-old Prudhoe Bay. So far, Milne Point, located adjacent to and north of the large Prudhoe Bay field, is the company’s greatest success on the Slope — but more is coming. Production at Milne Point, which is owned entirely by Hilcorp, has tripled since the field was purchased from BP in 2014 with Hilcorp becoming operator. Milne Point was then producing about 17,000 barrels per day but production has steadily increased after Hilcorp took full control of the field in 2020, Daniel Dono- van, Hilcorp’s Western North Slope Asset Team Leader, said at the Alaska Oil & Gas Association (AOGA) annual conference in Anchorage in September. During the past five years, $2.5 billion has been invested in drilling and con- struction of new facilities — including the Moose and Raven Pads — along with an injection of a polymer flood, the first on the North Slope, Donovan said. Earlier this year, Milne Point reached more than 50,000 barrels per day in production and Hilcorp says it’s optimistic it can reach 60,000 bar- rels per day in the next few years. At the large Prudhoe Bay field, Hilcorp has stabilized production after taking over as co-owner and operator from BP in 2020.
Photo by Judy Patrick
Hilcorp continues to invest heavily in new Alaska energy development.
ed to deliver peak production of 25,000 barrels per day — centers on construction of the new “Omega Pad” drill site and 51 development wells, with first oil expected in 2028, Donovan said. A second phase would add “I-Pad,” at a nearby site, poten- tially bringing on an additional 15,000 bar- rels per day in the early 2030s. A substantial part of the reservoir to be tapped in the Prudhoe west end project, is viscous oil similar to that in the Schrader Bluff viscous oil at Milne Point. Viscous oil is cooler than conventional crude oil main- ly because it is typically found at shallower depths than the large conventional oil res- ervoirs on the North Slope, which are deep- er and at warmer temperatures so that the oil flows more easily. Hilcorp now has experience with vis- cous oil because of its work in developing Milne Point. The Schrader Bluff oil Milne Point is also found at Prudhoe Bay’s west end. It is also similar to the West Sak vis-
Under BP’s operatorship, production at Prudhoe had been declining gradually, as aging oil fields do, but Hilcorp has mostly reversed the decline after making major in- vestments. Prudhoe Bay was the first large field developed on the North Slope in the 1970s and was the major crude oil supplier and economic anchor of the Trans Alaska Pipe- line System (TAPS), which went into oper- ation in 1977. The field is still the largest in North America. Hilcorp’s new plan for Prudoe is a ma- jor project in the west end of Prudhoe that could boost output from the field or at least continue to minimize production decline, Donovan said. This project, being called “Taiga” by Hilcorp, includes the develop- ment of two new pads to develop the vis- cous oil deposits, Donovan said. The project is a “greenfield develop- ment” on previously untapped tracts of Prudhoe subsurface. Phase one — project-
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ALASKA RESOURCE REVIEW FALL 2025
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