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Pioneer to spud first development wells Big independent in final stages of offshore North Slope Oooguruk oil field construction; prepares to drill first of 40 wells Kay Cashman Petroleum News
In mid-November Ken Sheffield, president of Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska, told attendees of the Resource Development Council’s annual conference that Pioneer is nearing the end of the construction phase for its Oooguruk oilfield development in the shallow waters of Harrison Bay just offshore Alaska’s North Slope.
The big Texas independent expects to spud the first of approximately 40 development wells in December, Sheffield said, noting that Oooguruk is the “largest development project” in Pioneer’s history.
“We’re getting ready to drill. … We’re finalizing facility hookup,” he told attendees of the RDC conference in Anchorage.
Referring to Oooguruk as the company’s “cornerstone property” in Alaska, Sheffield said the field would cost “over a half billion dollars to develop.”
Development drilling “will take about three years to complete,” he said.
Precedent setting event Sheffield said Oooguruk was a “precedent setting event for the State of Alaska,” in that Pioneer is “poised to become the first independent to operate a field on the North Slope and the first to secure a third-party facility access agreement” with the adjacent ConocoPhillips-operated Kuparuk River unit.
Jim Weeks, president of tiny independent Winstar Petroleum, actually secured the first facility access agreement with the owners of the Kuparuk unit prior to drilling the Oliktok Point State No. 1 exploration well in 2003, but the agreement was never activated because the well was a dry hole. So, Pioneer will be the first independent to have a working agreement with the Kuparuk unit owners.
Modified Nabors 19 AC
Nabors Rig 19 AC dominates one end of the man-made island Pioneer constructed for Oooguruk. The rig has been modified with “a new derrick, a new top drive and a fit-for-purpose moving system,” Sheffield said.
Although the “reservoir depths are only about 6,000 feet the well depths will average about 17,000 feet to accommodate 6,000 and 8,000 foot undulating horizontal sections in those wells, and we’ll do that to try to maximize throughput,” he said.
The island and the rig will be supplied “annually via an ice road,” Sheffield said.
First production from Oooguruk is expected in first quarter 2008.
Sheffield said Pioneer estimates “potential recovery in the 70-90 million barrel range” with Oooguruk producing “15,000 to 20,000 barrels per day at peak production in the 2010 timeframe.”
Currently Pioneer produces about 100,000 bpd from its assets outside Alaska. He said “over 90 percent” of the company’s reserves and production are concentrated in the Lower 48” — primarily in Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, including the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The company is also “growing” a gas business in South Africa and an oil and gas business in Tunisia.
Eleven wells to date in Alaska Pioneer currently has 35 full-time employees in Alaska, Sheffield said, with numbers in the 600 range during peak construction of Oooguruk. The company has 1,600 employees worldwide.
Pioneer entered Alaska in late 2002, drilling three exploration wells in the first quarter of 2003. Including those wells, the company has participated in 11 exploration wells, “with limited success outside of our Oooguruk project,” he said. (See related Pioneer story on page 10 of this issue.)
Pioneer holds 1.5 million gross acres in Alaska, mainly on the North Slope, with a “big part of that acreage in NPR-A with partners ConocoPhillips and Anadarko,” Sheffield said.
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