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UltraStar to expand Dewline unit North Slope independent wants to add offshore lease to northern end of unit, plans to drill directional well in early 2012 Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
UltraStar Exploration wants to expand its Dewline unit on the Alaska North Slope.
The local independent asked the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas to add an offshore lease to the northern border of the unit, located north of Prudhoe Bay and south of Northstar.
The 1,280-acre lease would bring the total size of Dewline to some 4,533 acres.
UltraStar is not asking for any changes to its unit agreement or plan of exploration.
The state is taking comments on the proposal through Jan. 31, 2011.
Directional well in 2012 UltraStar picked up the expansion lease — ADL 390608 — in an October 2004 state lease sale. That lease isn’t set to expire until June 30, 2012. The Dewline unit currently comprises three state leases that UltraStar acquired in October 2001 and 2003 lease sales.
UltraStar owns five leases covering some 5,764 acres of state land and water. The sole lease not at Dewline is contiguous to the northern boundary of the Beechey Point unit.
UltraStar drilled Dewline No. 1 in early 2009. The onshore 9,900-foot vertical well targeted oil in the Ivishak formation, but also gauged the natural gas potential of the area.
Under the terms of a five-year unit agreement approved in summer 2009, UltraStar must drill a second well at Dewline by May 31, 2013. In October 2010, UltraStar managing member Jim Weeks told Petroleum News that the company plans to drill in early 2012.
That next well, called North Dewline No. 1, would be a 14,000- to 15,000-foot directional well to an offshore target from an onshore pad, with a 6,000-foot displacement. The expansion lease is slightly more than 6,000 feet from the shoreline in the Dewline unit.
North Dewline No. 1 would explore a target in the Ivishak formation, but could also explore potential targets in the Sag River and Kuparuk formations, Weeks said.
UltraStar drilled Dewline No. 1 at the southern end of the unit and appears to be planning to spud North Dewline No. 1 in the middle of the unit with the well heading northward.
The only other well drilled to date in the area now included in the Dewline unit is the Point Storkersen No. 1 well drilled by the Hamilton Brothers in 1969 to a measured depth of 11,473 feet. That well tested an oil target in Sag River formation, flowing at 315 barrels per day and 735 bpd from two different depths in the Ivishak Sandstone.
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