BP anticipates 2 bln more barrels of Prudhoe Bay crudePosted by Bertram Liu on January 18th, 2021 BEIJING, March 3 (Xinhuanet)-- BP claims it can recoup at the very least 2 billion even more barrels of crude from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oilfield, even after taking into consideration the underground oil reservoir has produced more than 11 billion barrels, much more that assumed feasible when first found. Along with coaxing extra average sour crude out of the most efficient area in the United States, BP is eyeing the once worthless shallow tanks of heavier oil that have actually become useful as oil costs have actually surged to above 100 UNITED STATE bucks a barrel. " chelating agent for iron of Prudhoe Bay has ever been shut in," claimed Gordon Pospisil, a senior BP oil engineer that is leading the initiative to tap the field's hefty oil reservoirs. "We're still piercing 60 or 70 brand-new wells a year and also it comes down to a development of technology, the resource value and the opportunity to access a very large oil in position quantity making use of contemporary exploration methods." BP's target is improving recovery prices at Prudhoe Bay, as it nears completion of a two-year job to restore the field's transit pipelines after major corrosion resulted in major spills and also closures in 2006. The troubles cost it millions of bucks in penalties and tainted its very carefully built reputation as a modern oil business. Result at Prudhoe peaked at 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) before starting to decrease in 1988. The area currently pumps less than 400,000 bpd and production is decreasing at about 6 percent a year, yet stays the greatest manufacturer in the United States. In the meantime BP as well as its partners ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp are focusing their efforts on improving performance of Prudhoe's old wells through new modern technologies. These consist of adding special polymers as well as other ingredients to the water injected into the field to maintain reservoir stress, aiding to boost recovery rates by forcing even more oil out of the much less permeable parts of the reservoir, Pospisil said. BP currently thinks these new financial investments will certainly assist recoup an additional 1.5 billion barrels of Prudhoe's oil in addition to the 11.5 billion currently drained of the ground. But the new large goal is to make the 20 billion-barrel Ugnu formation of extra-heavy crude oil, which exists thousands of feet over the remainder of Prudhoe Bay, into a recoverable source.Like it? Share it! More by this author |