|
Talisman reports on FEX’s NPR-A drilling, plans for next winter
Talisman Energy CEO Jim Buckee made one discovery as his company’s subsidiary FEX drilled its first wildcat well in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska over the winter.
“It’s damn cold up there,” he ruefully told a conference call May 10 when an analyst asked what lessons Talisman has learned from the Aklaq 2 well.
It’s also surprisingly warm at times, commented Executive Vice President of Exploration John ’t Hart.
A combination of those two extremes forced FEX to suspend drilling on its NPR-A exploration well in February in anticipation of future testing.
Buckee and ’t Hart said the challenges ran the gamut from a deep freeze as FEX was barging equipment to the Aklaq site, followed by a warm spell that affected the tundra, then another cold snap.
“Alaska is an exercise in logistics,” said ‘t Hart.
The weather aside, the company has learned enough to decide it will do some things differently as it gears up for the next round of drilling in the winter of 2006/07.
A number of drilling locations will be identified this summer and if “everything works,” FEX will be ready to go on two to five locations this coming winter, ’t Hart said.
The big Nabors Rig 14E that FEX used this past winter is stacked at the staging area in Smith Bay. Talisman said FEX will attempt to bring in smaller, more mobile rigs over the summer, which gives legs to the rumor the Arctic Wolf being built by Akita Drilling in partnership with Doyon Drilling might also be used for FEX’s NPR-A drilling program.
In the past Talisman officials have talked about FEX using as many as three drilling rigs in NPR-A next winter.
Smith Bay leases complement Bolstering its longer term prospects, in March FEX acquired 25 Smith Bay leases covering 120,000 acres in the State of Alaska’s Beaufort Sea areawide lease sale. In addition to complementing the company’s land position south of Cape Simpson, FEX’s new leases in Smith Bay could line up with a possible exploration fairway across the northern part of NPR-A to the company’s existing leases on the west side of Harrison Bay, Paul Decker from Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas told Petroleum News following the lease sale.
Decker sees some particularly interesting exploration possibilities in Smith Bay.
“It’s a nice crestal position on the Barrow Arch, with shallow water and logistically connected to their onshore exploration program in NPR-A,” Decker said.
People have long known about four oil seeps on the coast at Cape Simpson, just west of Smith Bay. It’s a natural oil trap where Brookian topset sands come up against shale in an ancient incised canyon, Decker said. The oil from the Cape Simpson seeps likely originates from an “oil kitchen” to the north, in a lower Cretaceous source rock system known as the HRZ, he said.
“That would put this (Smith Bay) area squarely in between the kitchen and the seeps,” Decker said. “So you probably have a pretty good plumbing story to be able to charge this with nice light oil.”
In addition to a possible Brookian play, there are potential Ellesmerian plays below the lower Cretaceous unconformity (ancient erosion has probably scoured out the Beaufortian middle and upper Jurassic sands that are found in nearby onshore wells). The East Simpson No. 1 and No. 2 wells on the coast near Smith Bay found some interesting Sadlerochit and Endicott sands below the lower Cretaceous unconformity, Decker said.
The 25 leases are 140 miles west of Prudhoe Bay.
—Gary Park & Kay Cashman
| 