BRPC planning Tofkat wells A well and potentially a sidetrack at the unit near Nuiqsut would follow an early 2008 oil discovery in the Kuparuk formation Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. plans to drill a well and potentially a sidetrack at its Tofkat unit this winter to follow up on an oil discovery the company made in 2008.
The independent plans to use Nabors rig 106 to drill the Tofkat No. 2 well and Tofkat No. 2A sidetrack this winter at the unit along the Colville River, near Nuiqsut.
The program involves constructing a 5.7-acre or smaller ice pad in the unit, and a short ice road of less than one mile in length connecting the pad to the Alpine ice road.
The state is taking comments on the program through March 8.
10 oil samples Tofkat is one of Brooks Range Petroleum’s earliest drilling efforts in Alaska.
In early 2008, the operating arm of Alaska Venture Capital Group used Nabors rig 27E to drill the Tofkat No. 1 well and two sidetracks at the prospect. The well collected 10 oil samples from three sandstone reservoirs in the Brookian formation and a fourth sandstone in the deeper Kuparuk formation, where it found six feet of net pay. That winter, Brooks Range Petroleum also acquired some 200 square miles of 3-D seismic over the prospect.
In late 2011, the company formed the Tofkat unit over 21 state and Arctic Slope Regional Corp. leases covering some 9,131 acres. Under the unit plan of exploration, Brooks Range Petroleum must drill and complete a well into the Kuparuk by May 31, 2013, and the working interest owners at the unit must sanction a Tofkat development project by Oct. 1, 2013 — and keep it sanctioned through production — or terminate the unit.
Some 60 million barrels in place Brooks Range Petroleum previously estimated that Tofkat holds about 40 million barrels of recoverable oil in the Kuparuk C sands and another 20 million in the Jurassic sands.
The company said it already has an approved C-Plan for the program.
When Brooks Range Petroleum initially permitted exploration at Tofkat in 2007, it called the prospect Titania, but eventually changed the name to avoid confusion with an earlier and unrelated exploration effort by ConocoPhillips called the Titania Exploration Program.
In addition to Tofkat, Brooks Range Petroleum is also beginning development activities this winter at the Mustang field of its Southern Miluveach unit, due east of Tofkat.
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