North Slope oil production declines

For the entire month, oil companies produced 591,666 barrels a day in June from the Slope's oil fields, compared with 714,913 in May.

At the biggest field, the BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. run Prudhoe Bay, a plant called gathering center 2, which handles production from many wells, went down June 2 for a month-long turnaround. Production at Prudhoe averaged 248,747 barrels per day in June, down 31 percent from May.

Prudhoe production includes oil from these small satellite fields: Aurora, Borealis, Midnight Sun, Orion and Polaris.

The second largest field is the Conoco Phillips-run Kuparuk River field. There production averaged 144,674 barrels a day in June, down 2 percent from May. Scheduled work at the Kuparuk Central Processing Facility 2 began in June. Kuparuk production includes oil from the Tabasco, Tarn, Meltwater and West Sak fields nearby, and the Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska-operated Oooguruk field.

Conoco's Alpine field had a 3.5 percent May-to-June production decline, averaging 103,760 barrels a day in June. Planned maintenance at Alpine was scheduled around the June maintenance on the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline, with more work scheduled to coincide with the pipeline's July maintenance shutdown. Alpine production includes oil from Fiord, Nanuq and Qannik.

BP's Milne Point field averaged 29,555 barrels a day in June, down 3 percent. Milne Point includes Sag River and Schrader Bluff production.

Production from the BP-operated Lisburne field averaged 27,308 barrels a day, down 12 percent. Lisburne's numbers includes oil from Point McIntyre and Niakuk.

Two North Slope fields had June-over-May production increases: Endicott and Northstar.

The BP-operated Endicott field averaged 14,141 bpd in June, up 4 percent.

The BP-operated Northstar field averaged 23,481 bpd in June, up 1 percent.

In Cook Inlet, oil production averaged 3,003 bpd in June, down 25 percent from May. Transportation of oil from the west side of Cook Inlet ended when the Drift River Terminal was shut down because of the threat of continued eruptions from Mount Redoubt. Prior to that, Cook Inlet production was averaging more than 14,000 bpd.