Back in February, managers for Eni Petroleum were explaining to Alaska industry regulators how plunging oil prices and other complications had shifted their fast-track Nikaitchuq oil field development on the North Slope into a lower gear.

Now the Italian oil and gas giant is back with essentially the same strategy, but with a new set of dates for first oil from Nikaitchuq.

Even though the first barrels are now slated to come a year later than Eni originally projected, it's plain from the company's latest development plan that Nikaitchuq is a sophisticated project with an aggressive timeline.

Eni filed the plan with the state Division of Oil and Gas. It's the second such plan the company has submitted for the field, which is centered in the shallow waters of the Beaufort Sea north of the onshore Kuparuk oil field.

The project still involves producing Nikaitchuq's heavy, viscous oil from two drill pads, one offshore and one onshore.

While Eni's initial development plan of May 2008 had first oil flowing by the end of this year, the updated plan sees first oil by Dec. 31, 2010.

State officials, still reviewing Eni's new plan, are glad to see Eni back on track.

Eni is one of the "shining stars" of state efforts to encourage a greater diversity of companies working on the North Slope, said Nan Thompson, units manager in the Division of Oil and Gas. Rome-based Eni is a global oil and gas player and one of Italy's largest companies.

It arrived in Alaska in 2005 with the acquisition of leases from Armstrong Oil & Gas of Denver. Eni had a 30 percent stake in Nikaitchuq, but in April 2007 the company took full control of the field in acquiring Anadarko's 70 percent.

Eni is working to become only the second independent oil producer on the North Slope, and the fourth company overall to operate an oil field in the region.

The first independent, and currently the only operator other than giants BP and Conoco Phillips, is Pioneer Natural Resources, which started up its small offshore Oooguruk field last year. Eni holds a 30 percent stake in that development.

Nikaitchuq is a bigger and more complicated project. Pioneer sends Oooguruk's crude to Kuparuk for processing. Eni is developing Nikaitchuq as a standalone project with its own processing facilities located at Oliktok Point.

Eni has said Nikaitchuq is a $1.45 billion development and that it expects to produce 180 million barrels of oil. That's a sizeable amount of oil, though small relative to major North Slope fields such as Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk, which so far have produced well in excess of 11 billion and 2 billion barrels of oil respectively.

Nikaitchuq in the Inupiaq language means "perseveres" or "keeps trying."

In its latest development plan, Eni attributes the project slowdown earlier this year to more than just the plunge in oil prices late last year.

"A variety of factors, including but not limited to schedule delays, not meeting sealift deadlines, capital constraints and fabrication delays have caused Eni to change the pace of development for the Nikaitchuq Unit from an accelerated pace of development to a more normal pace," the plan says.

Part of Eni's problem was Hurricane Ike, which caused a work stoppage last September at a Louisiana fabrication yard making oil processing and operations modules for sealift to Alaska, Division of Oil and Gas records show. Barging equipment through icy Arctic Ocean waters to the North Slope is limited to a narrow window each summer.

Much work, however, has been completed on Nikaitchuq.

Three gravel work pads already have been built, as well as an elaborate subsea pipeline and part of an overland pipe to feed Nikaitchuq oil into the Kuparuk pipeline.

To carry processed Nikaitchuq oil to market, Eni also plans to complete a 14-mile onshore pipeline tying into the Kuparuk pipeline. The 14-inch line was about 20 percent done when construction was suspended, but work will resume later this year, Eni says. Meantime, fabrication of modules for processing well fluids is ongoing in Louisiana, with a sealift planned for next summer, the company says.

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