Rowan rigging up at Cosmopolitan

Rowan Rig 68 has arrived at Pioneer Natural Resources’ Cosmopolitan drilling site on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula and is preparing for drilling, Tadd Owens, director of government and public affairs for Pioneer in Alaska, told Petroleum News on Aug. 16.

“It’s currently being rigged up on-site at Cosmopolitan,” Owens said.

Cosmopolitan, which is approximately two miles offshore, near Anchor Point on the lower Kenai Peninsula, includes state and federal leases totaling some 25,000 acres. The prospect has resource potential of 30 million to 100 million barrels of oil, Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska President Ken Sheffield told an audience at the South Central Alaska Energy Forum in September 2006.

The known oil accumulation was discovered by Pennzoil in 1967 in the 12,112-foot vertical, Starichkof State No. 1, drilled from a jack-up rig. The more recent appraisal of the prospect has involved directional drilling from shore — in 2003 ConocoPhillips and the other owners at that time drilled a long-reach appraisal well and a sidetrack, the Hansen No. 1 and Hansen No. 1A wells.

It appears from Pioneer’s plan of exploration and a drilling permit issued by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission that Pioneer will use the Rowan rig to drill a sidetrack well Hansen 1A L1.

—Alan Bailey