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Nabors rig in place at Point Thomson
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Nabors rig 27E has reached Point Thomson — and ExxonMobil has provided pictures illustrating that fact.
The rig has been modified for drilling the high-pressure wells at the Point Thomson field on Alaska’s eastern North Slope.
ExxonMobil said in an April 21 release that it had mobilized the drilling rig for the Point Thomson project.
The company said the rig was moved from Deadhorse to the drilling site in modules, some weighing more than 1 million pounds.
Work on the rig has been ongoing at Deadhorse while ice road permits were secured following an agreement reached between ExxonMobil, the Point Thomson operator, and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, which had terminated the unit and taken back the leases.
Based on a commitment by ExxonMobil and the other Point Thomson owners to complete two wells by the end of 2010 and begin production by the end of 2014, DNR Commissioner Tom Irwin provisionally returned ownership of two leases to the companies and removed DNR’s objection to ice road permits.
The first word that the rig was in motion came April 10 from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who said at the end of a press conference that she had received word that there was “equipment rolling down the ice road today and the big rig following that equipment” on the way to Point Thomson.
Haymes: work on schedule “We are moving forward with drilling and development activities at Point Thomson, for the mutual benefit of Alaskans and the Point Thomson unit working interest owners,” Craig Haymes, Alaska production manager for ExxonMobil, said in the company’s statement.
Haymes said state and federal agencies “have worked tirelessly to process permits necessary to allow drilling to begin.”
“We are on schedule to begin production at Point Thomson by year-end 2014 and look forward to working with the State to resolve the remaining Point Thomson issues to ensure the project schedule is not impacted,” he said.
Haymes said construction crews recently completed final installation of camps and support facilities at the existing gravel pad.
More than 250 people will work on the drilling operations, he said, with an average of more than 500 people at year-end 2014, when production is expected to begin.
ExxonMobil said that Fairweather E&P Services Inc. and Nanuq/AFC constructed more than 30 miles of ice roads so heavy equipment and materials could be moved to Point Thomson. Most of the ice road follows the shore line along the Beaufort Sea, the company said.
ExxonMobil had struck a deal to use the ice road built by Savant for its winter drilling work at Badami, cutting in half the mileage that had to be built to Point Thomson.
The initial phase of the project will process approximately 200 million cubic feet per day of Point Thomson gas in order to produce approximately 10,000 barrels per day of liquid condensate into the trans-Alaska oil pipeline by year end 2014, the company said, with the remaining gas recycled into the Point Thomson reservoir. The Point Thomson unit working interest owners committed $120 million to the drilling and development activities in 2008, with additional investments of about $250 million expected in 2009.
In addition to ExxonMobil, the other major Point Thomson owners participating in the current drilling and development activity include BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. and ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc.
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