Work on the Cosmopolitan oil prospect in Southcentral Alaska’s Cook Inlet basin has ramped back up, operator Pioneer Natural Resources told Petroleum News Oct. 20.
In January, Pioneer put plans to drill an appraisal well on hold until 2010 because of low oil prices, although Tadd Owens said the company would continue to investigate the feasibility of commercial oil production from Cosmopolitan, which was discovered in 1967 by Pennzoil.
Owens, Pioneer’s director of government and public affairs, also said Pioneer was “well positioned to ramp back up when prices recover.”
In August, Pioneer said it would continue with just one drilling rig in Alaska in 2009 and 2010 — at its offshore North Slope Oooguruk oil field — suggesting no drilling was anticipated at Cosmopolitan in 2010.
On Oct. 20, with crude prices in the high $70s, Petroleum News asked Owens if there was any possibility Pioneer would do something at Cosmopolitan in 2010.
“Pioneer will conduct additional appraisal work at Cosmopolitan during the fourth quarter of this year and first quarter of 2010,” Owens replied in an email. “The company plans to work over and flow test the Hansen 1A L1 well — originally drilled in 2007 — in order to gain additional reservoir information.”
Pioneer, he said, “Continues to move forward with permitting and facility planning activities as well as plans for a second appraisal well.”
See story in Oct. 25 issue, available online at noon, Friday Oct. 23, at www.PetroleumNews.com.
