The Badami Oil Pool was discovered in 1990, and developed through a drilling program lasting from 1997 to 1998.  The pool has now been penetrated by 19 well bores, most of which are clustered near the center of the Badami Unit.  There are 8 additional wells that lie inside of, or within 4 miles of, the unit boundaries. The pool began regular production on August 23, 1998, and peaked at average rate of 7,450 barrels per day during September 1998.  However, production rapidly declined to 3,300 barrels per day by January 1999, and the field was shut in from February 4 through April 30, 1999.  After facilities were upgraded and remediated, production was restarted on May 1, 1999 and jumped to an average of nearly 5,300 barrels per day during July of 1999. However, by year-end 1999, production declined to an average of less than 3,000 barrels per day, and by July 2003 it averaged less than 1,300 barrels per day from six wells.  In August, 2003, the Regulatory Commission of Alaska approved BP’s request to temporarily shut down the Badami oil pipeline and gas products pipeline for approximately two years.  BP shut-in production and placed the facilities in “warm shutdown” that same month.

The Badami reservoir consists of a series of turbidite sandstones assigned to the Tertiary-aged Canning Formation. These sandstones were deposited as amalgamated channel sands within mud-dominated submarine fan systems.  Published descriptions suggest the reservoirs are complex, consisting of 61 identified fans laid down during seven depositional events, with thin and discontinuous reservoir quality sands. No single well has encountered all of the identified fan systems, but Badami #1 reportedly has the most complete section. The Badami Oil Pool is defined as the accumulation of hydrocarbons common to and correlating with the interval between the measured depths of 9,500 feet and 11,500 feet in the Badami No. 1 well.  The reservoir sandstones are very fine-to-fine grained and moderately sorted.  Porosity ranges from 15 to 21 percent, permeability ranges from 1 to 400 md, and oil gravity ranges from 21 to 30 degrees API.