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Nordaq Energy works CIRI gas prospect Shadura project in Kenai National Wildlife Refuge looking for gas; Nordaq separately looking at oil prospects outside the refuge Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Nordaq Energy of Anchorage plans to explore for natural gas this winter on Cook Inlet Region Inc. subsurface in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Nikiski on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.
An environmental assessment for the project says the Shadura prospect will require a temporary drill pad and a temporary ice access road. The pad and most of the ice road would be on surface lands managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and on subsurface inholdings owned by CIRI.
The prospect is west of the Swanson River field on the northern Kenai Peninsula.
The proposed drilling program would be completed over a single winter season and after testing the Shadura 1 well for natural gas, Nordaq said it would plug and abandon or suspend the well and demobilize in mid-March 2011.
The exploration activities are pursuant to an agreement with CIRI on leases CO61647, CO61648 and CO61649, a combined 10,800 acres of CIRI subsurface estate inholdings. Section 1110(b) of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act allows for access to CIRI subsurface inholdings within the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge for exploration, testing and development of hydrocarbons.
The environmental assessment was prepared at the request of the Fish and Wildlife Service to document project elements, assess potential environmental impacts and develop mitigation measures.
December through March Nordaq’s schedule calls for ice road construction to begin in late December after sufficient frost and snow accumulation (more than 1.5 feet of each). Starting in late November, equipment, drill pipe and drilling muds would be staged on gravel pads in Nikiski. After ice road construction is complete, equipment and supplies would be hauled to the drill site as needed and removed from the site as soon as possible.
Drilling would begin in early February. By early March, the rig would be demobilized and a truck-mounted wireline unit brought in to test the well. A truck-mounted coiled tubing unit would be used to plug and abandon or suspend the well.
All equipment would be demobilized by mid March and initial restoration would begin in cleared areas. A complete inspection and restoration by planting trees would occur in mid July.
The temporary ice road will be designed and constructed so that its former route does not become a permanent trail for motorized vehicles. Mitigation will include replanting trees and replacing or re-standing deadwood within the footprint.
The exploration pad will be double lined and about 250 by 250 feet. It will not contain a camp. Construction and drilling personnel will be lodged in the Kenai and Nikiski area and transported by crew buses or contractor vehicles. Shelters at the Shadura drill site will be limited to a break shack, a doghouse for the supervisor and an enviro-vac trailer for sewage.
Beluga, Tyonek targets Drilling targets include Beluga formation sands between 6,000 and 11,000 feet total vertical depth and upper and middle Tyonek formation sands between 11,000 and 14,500 feet TVD.
An Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation approved oil discharge and contingency plan will not be required because the prospect is natural gas and there will be limited onsite fuel storage.
However, Nordaq is preparing a program-wide plan for other proposed off-refuge drilling prospects.
An alternative considered but eliminated was directional drilling from off-refuge.
Using an extended reach drilling rig would not be technically practicable, the environmental assessment said, because the Shadura drill site is “over the center of the natural gas play, and is at least 4.3 miles from an off-refuge area capable of staging an ERD rig.”
Because Shadura drilling targets include multiple pay zones from 6,000 feet TVD in the Beluga formation sands to 14,500 feet in middle Tyonek formation sands, “an ERD rig capable of directional drilling over five miles would be required. There is no ERD drill rig capable of drilling this distance in existence.” CIRI entitlements to some 200,000 acres The environmental assessment says that based on the most recent information, CIRI has received entitlements to some 200,000 acres of subsurface estate adjacent to the leases being explored by Nordaq under provisions of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and has development rights to oil, gas and coal resources on these lands.
The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge is within the Cook Inlet hydrocarbon basin, and was identified in ANILCA as a favorable petroleum geologic province. Refuge lands were classified in the 1950s to identify areas that would not be subject to oil and gas leasing, and since that time leases for the Swanson River, Beaver Creek and Birch Hill oil and gas fields have been issued under the authority of the Minerals Leasing Act of 1920, with 13,252 acres leased and developed.
Nordaq also holds some 14,700 acres of state oil and gas leases.
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