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Pipeline connector planned to take more Prudhoe NGLs to market
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
A plan is underway to increase natural gas liquids volumes mixed with crude oil and sold from the North Slope through the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
Prudhoe Bay operator Hilcorp North Slope LLC and Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. have applied to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to connect Hilcorp North Slope's existing natural gas liquids field gathering pipeline to Pump Station 1, and for a permit to construct and operate the proposed facilities, RCA said in an April 4 public notice.
The application is on behalf of trans-Alaska oil pipeline owners Harvest Alaska LLC, ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. and ConocoPhillips Transportation Alaska Inc.
The facilities would be between Skid 50 and a tie-in just upstream of Pump Station 1 mainline unit pumps, allowing additional NGLs to be blended into the TAPS common stream, maximizing export of NGLs from Prudhoe Bay "using available TAPS bubble point vapor pressure capacity that exists downstream of PS1," the commission said.
In the April 1 application the applicants said the purpose of the interconnect facilities "is to increase and eventually maximize the export of NGLs from the PBU and to safely transport the same to market" by blending the NGLs downstream of the FE-3017 custody transfer flow meter and PS1 upstream of the Alyeska mainline pumping units.
In February, the most recent month for which the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has published production volumes, NGL production from the North Slope averaged 58,445 barrels per day, primarily from Prudhoe Bay, but with smaller volumes from Endicott and Northstar.
Up to 5,000 additional bpd The application says the proposed interconnect facilities would accommodate throughput of up to 5,000 bod of incremental daily average NGLs blended into TAPS, with the facilities allowing blending of between 900 and 4,200 bpd, and the plan "to begin exporting NGLs at a low incremental rate, and then likely increase the rate over time as quality feedback is collected ... taking advantage of additional vapor pressure capacity downstream in TAPS."
"The flow rates in the NGL Pipeline and the Interconnect Facilities will be controlled to remain within vapor pressure specifications for the connection and the TAPS," the application says.
The amount of NGLs exported is expected to be influenced by market conditions and the expectation, the application says, is that there will typically be "significantly reduced NGL exports during the summer months," with the proposed NGL injection expected to occur largely between October and March and the amount based on total crude throughput.
The application said the estimated cost of implementing the plan is $10 million, which will be paid by Hilcorp North Slope.
--KRISTEN NELSON
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