Repsol E&P USA Inc. plans to drill three wells on Alaska’s North Slope during the coming winter drilling season, Bill Hardham, the company’s Alaska operations manager, has told Petroleum News. Two of the wells, the Qugruk No. 5 and Qugruk No. 7, will appraise a hydrocarbon discovery that the company made last winter in its Qugruk prospect, near the Beaufort Sea coast between the Colville River unit and the Oooguruk unit. The third well, the Tuttu No. 1, will be an exploration well in the Schrader Bluff/West Sak area, close to the Kuparuk river unit, some distance to the east of where Repsol has previously drilled, Hardham said.
“Our activity level should be about as it was last year,” Hardham said. “We do have plans to operate three drilling rigs on the Slope this winter.”
Hardham declined to comment on the target for the Tuttu well.
Repsol also plans to shoot two 3-D seismic surveys this winter, Hardham said. One of those surveys will cover an approximately 190-square-mile area in the extreme northern part of the Colville River Delta and extending offshore on land-fast ice of the nearshore Beaufort Sea. The other survey, covering an area of about 290-square miles, will be in the Schrader Bluff area, immediately adjacent the Kuparuk river unit and including the location of the Tuttu well.
To date Repsol has been formulating its drilling plans using existing 3-D seismic data that it has obtained under license, Hardham said.
—Alan Bailey
See story in Oct. 20 issue, available online at 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 18, at www.PetroleumNews.com
