Alaska Oil And Gas Profile

Related Pages

• Nikaitchuq Oil Field
• Kenai Alaska Lng Terminal
• Alpine Oil Field
• Alaska Oil And Gas Profile
• Kenai Refinery

Country News

Introduction

• Alaska has vast energy resources with major oil and gas reserves found in the Alaska North Slope (ANS) and Cook Inlet basins. The ANS contains 14 of the 100 largest oil fields in the United States, and five of the 100 largest natural gas fields. The North Slope’s Prudhoe Bay field is the largest oil field in the country, producing an average of 264,000 barrels per day.

Regulation

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Upstream

• Alaska is the second-ranked oil-producing State after Texas, when output from the Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is excluded from the State totals. Nearly all of Alaska’s oil production takes place on the North Slope.

Active Companies

• ConocoPhillips is Alaska’s largest oil and gas producer with significant ownership interests in two of North America’s largest oil fields located on Alaska’s North Slope — Kuparuk, which ConocoPhillips Alaska operates, and Prudhoe Bay.
• The company also has a significant operating interest in the Alpine field on the Western North Slope, as well as adjacent Alpine satellite fields.

Crude Oils

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Midstream

• The Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) transports crude oil from the frozen North Slope to the warm-water Port of Valdez, on Alaska’s southern coast.
• The pipeline has a maximum daily throughput of over 2 million barrels per day, but actual throughput has been less than 1 million barrels per day since 2003.

LNG

• The Kenai liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the Cook Inlet exports LNG, primarily to Japan. Kenai is the only LNG export terminal in the United States.
• The Kenai LNG Terminal closed in 2011, after 42 years in service. It was the oldest LNG terminal in the world
• It was owned and operated by Conocophillips

Downstream

• Demand for finished petroleum products in Alaska is low. Although Alaska has six refineries, most of them are “topping” plants that strip away lighter products from the TAPS heavy crude oil stream for internal refinery use.
• The refineries in operation are Bp Prudhoe Bay Refinery, Conocophillips Kuparuk Refinery, Tesoro's Kenai Refinery , Flint Hills Resources North Pole Refinery Alaska which is the largest in Alaska, and Petro Star North Pole Refinery and Valdez Refinery
• All of these refineries are simple and typically strip the light components from the oil and blend the heavier components back in to the crude.

Relevant Links

• The Alaska Oil & Gas Association (AOGA )
• Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Oil & Gas Division
• EIA, Alaska
• North Slope Oil and Gas Activity 2010-2011

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