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Alaskan Crude applies for North Slope unit, independent will first re-enter one of its old wells
Alaskan Crude Corp. has applied to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources to form and operate the Arctic Fortitude exploration unit on Alaska’s North Slope. Along with the unit application, Alaskan Crude is filing a proposed two-year plan of exploration. James White of San Antonio, Texas, is president of Alaskan Crude and a long-time oil and gas investor in Alaska leases.
“The proposed unit area covers approximately 6,363 acres within three individual State of Alaska oil and gas leases,” according to the unit application.
The leases referred to are ADL 389178, ADL 38179 and ADL 389177, on the south side of the Prudhoe Bay unit, immediately east of the NE Storms unit. The seven-year primary lease term of these leases expires on June 30, 2006, the application says.
Primary targets The unit application lists primary exploration targets in the Ugnu, West Sak and Ivishak formations, “with the possibility of encountering other hydrocarbon-bearing sandstones.” The application references neighboring prospects and “locally productive areas” in the Ivishak formation, consisting of structural closures in the Ellesmerian defined by 3-D seismic mapping. Alaskan Crude also expects structures reported by Pioneer Natural Resources in the NE Storms unit to repeat on the Arctic Fortitude unit side of a fault that runs between that unit and NE Storms.
Alaskan Crude is in the process of obtaining more 3-D seismic from ConocoPhillips and Western Geco, under the terms of the Charter for the Development of the Alaskan North Slope. The company plans to have Petrotechnical Resources of Alaska re-interpret this data.
Three wells drilled from gravel pads by Alaskan Crude in the past exist within the area of the proposed unit. The company drilled the Burgin 33-1 well in 1984-85 to a total depth of 9,458 feet in section 33, township 10 north, range 14 east of the Umiat meridian. According to the unit application the well “tested in several formations … including sandstone intervals within the Ugnu, West Sak, Shublik, Brookian Albian, HRZ and Sadlerochit.”
The company suspended the other two wells, the Alaskan Crude F-2 and Alaskan Crude F-3, after setting the conductor pipe at depths of 82 feet and 85 feet respectively, according to the unit application. The F2 well is at section 26, township 10 north, range 13 east of the Umiat meridian. The F3 well is at section 29, township 10 north, range 12 east of the Umiat meridian.
Re-entering Burgin No. 33-1 According to the Alaskan Crude plan of exploration the company anticipates re-entering the Burglin No. 33-1 well by June 30, 2007. The plan anticipates testing several intervals including the West Sak/Ugnu, the middle Cretaceous Brookian and a portion of the Ivishak formation.
The exploration plan also envisages the subsequent drilling of additional exploration wells from existing gravel pads. And the unit application suggests that the second well to be drilled will target a prospect at a bottom hole location in the southwest corner of tract 3 of the new unit, approximately 1,100 feet from the Hailstorm No. 1 exploratory well in the NE Storms unit.
“However, the ultimate bottom hole location of this well will be finalized at a later date,” the unit application says.
The unit application also says that lease stipulations for environmental protection will apply to the unit and that “anticipated activity under the Arctic Fortitude Unit Agreement will impact wildlife, habitat and subsistence activity less than if the lessee developed the leases individually.”
—Alan Bailey
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