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Prudhoe Bay to resume full oil output end of October: BP
AFP
LONDON
Petroleumworld.com 09 27 06
British energy giant BP said on Tuesday that it expected to resume full production by the end of October of 400,000 barrels of oil a day from Prudhoe Bay, the biggest US oil field.
A spokesman told AFP that output had been raised over the weekend to 300,000 barrels per day after normal output was slashed by about half last month owing to a pipeline leak.
A separate technical problem had caused production to be cut to 110,000 bpd at one point in August.
The BP spokesman said on Tuesday that output at the Alaskan oil field would rise to 350,000 bpd over the next week.
"Overall crude oil production is running at about 300,000 barrels a day," spokesman Toby Odone said.
"Over the next week or so, we expect it to increase to around 350,000 barrels a day, and by the end of October, we expect to be back to 400,000 barrels a day."
Prudhoe Bay, which accounts for some eight percent of total US oil production, is operated by BP on behalf of a consortium that includes also US giants ExxonMobil Corp, Chevron Corp and ConocoPhillips.
Following news of the pipeline leak, the price of London Brent crude oil soared to a record high point of 78.64 dollars per barrel on August 7.
But Tuesday's news contributed to oil prices falling in New York and London trade, where they stood below 61 dollars per barrel.
BP said last week that it planned to embark on a review of its global operations following the Prudhoe Bay incident and other big setbacks for the British energy group in the United States.
These include a fourth delay to BP's new Thunder Horse platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which is not now likely to begin operating until mid-2008.
Proceedings began recently in a lawsuit against the oil giant for an explosion at the Texas City oil refinery in 2005, which left 15 people dead and 170 injured.
BP has already recognised that internal errors were behind the blast and boss John Browne has publicly apologised for the explosion.
In late morning trading on Tuesday, the share price of BP rose 0.06 percent to 563.81 pence on London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares. The FTSE 100 climbed 0.77 percent to 5,842.80 points.
AFP 26 1207 GMT 09 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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