State regulators approve APA's takeover of Badami pipelines on the eastern North Slope

State regulators on Friday approved APA Corporation's takeover of the Badami oil and gas pipelines on the eastern North Slope, a step in the oil company's purchase of Badami's operator, Savant Alaska, for about $70 million upfront.

APA holds exploration acreage next to Badami. It planned two wells for this winter, including one in an area it calls the Sockeye complex that would also help assess whether Badami's existing facilities can be used, the company said when it announced the deal in June. Along with the pipelines, APA would get Badami's processing plant, worker housing, a barge landing, runway access, about 104,000 acres and about 1,500 barrels a day of oil production.

The oil line runs about 25 miles west from Badami to the Endicott pipeline, which feeds the trans-Alaska pipeline, according to the Department of Natural Resources. It also carries oil from the Point Thomson field.

The pipeline company has lost money in three of the last five years, including nearly $2 million in 2025, the Regulatory Commission of Alaska said in its order. Because of those losses, the commission weighed APA's own finances in judging the new owner's financial fitness, and it is requiring APA to file a signed guarantee covering the pipelines' obligations by Nov. 30.

When BP's pipeline company sold the lines in 2013, it kept the job of eventually removing them and cleaning up the land, for the lines as they stood then. That obligation now sits with Harvest Midstream, which took it on in Hilcorp's purchase of BP's Alaska business, with BP as a backstop, according to a 2023 state document quoted in the order. The companies said APA is buying Savant itself so those arrangements stay in place. The order doesn't say what the cleanup would cost.

Savant will keep running the system with the same staff, the companies told the commission. The deal still needs approval from the state's pipeline coordinator, and APA expects to close by the end of the year.