Alpine Oil Field—1-1/2 Years after Start-up

By

D.A. Gingrich, M. Kremer, and C. Crabtree (Phillips Alaska, Inc.)

Many new ideas and approaches were incorporated into developing the Alpine Oil Field. This is the first time an Alaska, North Slope field was built in an active delta; had no road connection to infrastructure; used horizontal drilling to ‘cross’ the Colville River; has no valves on the pipeline after the Colville River; has all horizontal open hole well completions; has a very small footprint; and has no redundancy in the processing plant.

The Alpine Field has been on production for 1-1/2 years. After an ‘interesting’ first 4 months, the reservoir and facility have been performing at or better than expectations. What has worked well, ok, not at all? This talk will discuss the predictions, decisions, and early field production outcomes made by the development team.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90008©2002 AAPG Pacific Section/SPE Western Region Joint Conference of Geoscientists and Petroleum Engineers, Anchorage, Alaska, May 18–23, 2002.