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Nabors withdraws Point Thomson rig After millions in upgrades, rig 27-E drilled 2 wells for Exxon in Alaska North Slope field; no more drilling likely until 2013-14 Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
A heavily modified drilling rig that punched a pair of high-pressure wells for ExxonMobil in the disputed Point Thomson field on Alaska’s eastern North Slope is now cold-stacked and will be moved to Deadhorse in February.
Dave Hebert, general manager of Nabors Alaska Drilling, said the plan is to bring the rig out of Point Thomson on an ice road, probably in early February, and then park it at Deadhorse. The journey is expected to take a week.
Other Point Thomson contractors that attended a recent ExxonMobil-sponsored Safety, Security, Health and Environment Forum in Anchorage told Petroleum News that because of a hold-up with an authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, ExxonMobil officials told them no additional drilling was expected at Point Thomson until the winter of 2013-14.
In past press releases, ExxonMobil has said rig 27-E received millions of dollars in upgrades to drill the robust wells necessary for the company’s planned natural gas cycling project in the extremely high-pressure Point Thomson field. The field is located some 60 miles east of Prudhoe Bay along the Beaufort Sea coastline.
Rig 27-E was mobilized to Point Thomson in April 2009 and subsequently drilled the PTU-15 and PTU-16 wells, which angle out from land to the target gas reservoir more than a mile and a half offshore.
Corps delay causes drilling delay ExxonMobil has vowed to begin production of 10,000 barrels a day of gas condensate by the end of 2014.
The Corps of Engineers is preparing an environmental impact statement, or EIS, for the project, and an ExxonMobil affiliate has applied for a state right of way to build a 22-mile pipeline to carry Point Thomson liquids west to Badami to hook into the existing North Slope pipeline network.
The Corps, in charge of preparing the EIS, originally estimated it would sign a “record of decision” in July 2011 and publish it in August 2011. The need for an EIS was triggered by Exxon’s application for a Corps wetlands permit.
Now the target date is Jan. 19, 2012, the Corps says.
Legal cloud remains The Point Thomson development remains under the cloud of a persistent legal conflict between the state and the major leaseholders including operator ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips.
The state is pressing efforts to reclaim the state-owned acreage at Point Thomson on grounds that the leaseholders neglected to develop the field after its 1977 discovery.
The state’s get-tough stance spurred ExxonMobil to drill the two wells, the first at Point Thomson since 1983.
The state and the leaseholders say they’re trying to reach a settlement.
—Kay Cashman contributed to this article.
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