Winx well ice road construction underway

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

Construction of an approximately 11-mile ice road to the drill site for the planned Winx 1 exploration well is underway, project operator 88 Energy Ltd. announced on Jan. 7. The company said that it had filed an application with the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for a permit to drill - drilling should start in mid to late February. The company anticipates the ice road taking about three weeks to complete, after which it will be necessary to construct an ice drilling pad. The Nordic-Calista Services rig No. 3 will conduct the drilling, which is being funded by 88 Energy Ltd., Otto Energy, Red Emperor Resources and Great Bear Petroleum.

The drilling location is about four miles east of the Horseshoe 1/1A discovery well, drilled in 2017, and close to the Pikka/Horseshoe trend in which major oil resources have been found in the Nanushuk formation. The Nanushuk forms the primary focus of recent significant oil discoveries on the North Slope. 88 Energy says that a prospect in the Nanushuk forms the primary target for the Winx well, but that there are multiple, stacked drilling objectives. The companies identified the drilling targets using 3-D seismic data acquired from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. They estimate a gross oil resource of around 400 million barrels across the multiple plays that the well is testing.

- ALAN BAILEY