ExxonMobil resumes drilling at Point Thomson

OREANDA-NEWS. ExxonMobil resumed drilling at the Point Thomson field on Alaska's North Slope and plans to bring output online next year as promised under a 2012 settlement with the state.

Two injection wells will work in tandem with a production well to cycle 200mn cf/d of natural gas through a central processing facility to produce 10,000 b/d of natural gas condensate. The condensate will then be transported by a 22-mile pipeline to the Trans-Alaska pipeline system in Prudhoe Bay.

"The Point Thomson field is a vital part of unlocking Alaska's North Slope gas resources," the company said.

Located adjacent to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Point Thomson area had largely been dormant since the 1980s when oil majors like ExxonMobil focused on oil production near Prudhoe Bay. Alaskan regulators ruled the companies had defaulted on terms of their leases by leaving the area undeveloped, but in 2012 the parties reached a settlement that led to the current development work.

Point Thomson holds an estimated 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and associated condensate, a light oil similar to kerosene or diesel. That's about 25pc of known gas resources on the North Slope. Alaskan officials look to development of Point Thomson as a key to developing natural gas production to feed a proposed pipeline to a planned LNG plant on the state's south central coast.

As of year-end 2014, ExxonMobil and other partners have invested more than \$2.6bn in the development of Point Thomson.