Alaska North Slope oil producers appear to have halted a long-term decline in annual production, state production data showed.
For the first 10 months of the state’s 2014 fiscal year, production has averaged 532,700 b/d, data through April showed. Preliminary data for May and June indicates the trend is likely to hold.
Average production for the 2013 fiscal year was 531,600 b/d. The state fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30.
The figures are subject to adjustment, said Cherie Nienhuis, a petroleum analyst with the Alaska Department of Revenue, but the data indicates the state will end its current fiscal year on June 30 with North Slope output roughly on par with the previous year.

That has not happened since 2000 and 2001, when production temporarily flattened due to the startup of the Alpine and Northstar fields on the slope.
North Slope production has been in a long-term decline since 1989, and in recent years has dropped at an average rate of 6%, although the decline was 8% between 2012 and 2013.
The increase in production is a result of an uptick in drilling and well work by slope producers BP and ConocoPhillips since the Legislature changed the state’s production tax in April 2013 to encourage new investment, the companies say.
The tax change has been controversial, however. Critics organized a voter referendum to repeal the change, and the question will be on the state primary election ballot on August 19.
BP and ConocoPhillips, the two main North Slope operators, have laid on new rigs and stepped up well “workovers” and other production-stimulation work. BP has increased its well work aimed at production-rate stimulation by 20% this year and its spending on the work by 40%, BP spokeswoman Dawn Patience said.
Scott Jepsen, ConocoPhillips’ vice president for external affairs in Alaska, said, “Drilling of new production wells in the existing North Slope fields is the fastest way to add new production on the slope. The bulk of the North Slope’s undeveloped oil resources (4.5 billion barrels of 5 billion barrels estimated) are within the big ‘legacy’ fields,” mainly the Kuparuk and Prudhoe Bay fields.”