Finding “no commercial hydrocarbons,” Anadarko Petroleum plugged its Jacob’s Ladder well this winter, according to the company’s first quarter operations report.
The well sits in the Jacob’s Ladder unit southeast of Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s eastern North Slope.
Anadarko has a 50 percent interest in the oil prospect, with partners BG Group (40 percent) and the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. (10 percent) holding the other 50 percent.
Anadarko began drilling the well last year, and returned this winter with a newly winterized Akita 63 rig. The company spud Jacob’s Ladder in February and drilled to a total depth of 14,416 feet.
The purpose of the program was to test the Lisburne and Sadlerochit structures in the area to determine whether more exploration might be warranted.
State geologists believe the Lisburne (Wahoo formation) structure in Jacobs Ladder could yield between 20 million and 660 million barrels of oil equivalent and the Sadlerochit (Ivishak formation) structure could hold 50 million to 800 million boe.
The Akita 63 rig is now headed to Canada after being racked in Deadhorse.
On the other side of the North Slope, Anadarko “encountered natural gas in two zones” at the Gubik No. 3 well.
Gubik No. 3, part of the Gubik gas field discovered by the U.S. Navy in 1951, sits just east of the Colville River along the boundary of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, northeast of the village of Umiat. The well is part of a two or three year exploration program looking for commercial amounts of gas in the foothills of the Brooks Range, the first deliberate search for gas in northern Alaska.
Anadarko was unable to finish drilling another well in its gas exploration program, Chandler No. 1, just south of Gubik 3. It was suspended.
Over the next month or so, the company plans to analyze the data it gathered this winter, according to spokesman Mark Hanley.
“We’re having meetings trying to decide what we’re doing next year,” Hanley told Petroleum News.
The expectation is to return to Chandler next year, Hanley said. Other plans could include one or more of five other wells proposed at Gubik. That prospect, if ultimately proven commercial, could supply a bullet line into Southcentral Alaska.
As Anadarko prepares for its future in Alaska, it has wrapped up a piece of its past. The company recently plugged the Altamura No. 1 well, its first wildcat in Alaska, drilled back in 2002 in the NPR-A.
See full stories in the May 11 issue of Petroleum News, which will be online May 9 at noon Alaska-time at www.petroleumnews.com.
