Seventy-nine NPR-A Conoco leases set to expire Aug. 31

Seventy-nine leases operated by ConocoPhillips in the northeast sale area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska are set to expire on Aug. 31.

Neither the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, nor ConocoPhillips, was ready to comment on a proposal the company submitted earlier this month to BLM on the expiring acreage. BLM has not yet completed its response to that proposal, ConocoPhillips said and BLM confirmed.

BLM spokeswoman Sharon Wilson told Petroleum News Aug. 20, that ConocoPhillips has two options for a 10-year renewal on each of the 79 leases: Apply under “lease without a discovery,” which carries a price tag of $100 per acre, or apply as a “lease with discovery,” in which case the $100 fee would be waived. “There are other nominal administrative fees attached in both situations,” Wilson said.

The expiring leases, purchased in the first NE NPR-A lease sale in 1999, include the Trailblazer wells drilled by BP (ConocoPhillips was a partner and later, with Anadarko, acquired the leases), and the following wells, drilled by ConocoPhillips:

• Puviaq 1

• Hunter A

• Noatak 1

• Scout 1

The Puviaq well, drilled by ConocoPhillips in the winter of 2003, is near the Ikpikpuk River, which is almost 80 miles from the village of Nuiqsut. The wildcat, in which Anadarko was a partner, took two seasons to drill and test, with an ice pad put in one year and drilling and testing done the next. Rolligons were used to reach the well site versus building an ice road.

The results of the Puviaq well have not been released. The well is in operational suspension.

Hunter A was drilled in 2002, some 28 miles southwest of Nuiqsut. Petroleum News was unable to discover the status of the well.

Noatak, drilled by ConocoPhillips in 2007 in partnership with Pioneer Natural Resources, was deemed “non-commercial” in May 2007, in part because of its distance from existing oilfield infrastructure in the Colville River unit, where ConocoPhillips is looking at processing its eastern NPR-A discoveries.

Scout 1, which sits on the boundary of the Mooses Tooth unit, was drilled in 2004, within 10 miles of discoveries that were made in 2000 and 2001. The well was suspended, and the results were not released.

Trailblazer A-01 well was plugged and abandoned; Trailblazer H-01 was suspended.

Staying closer to infrastructure

In 2007 ConocoPhillips began dropping leases in NPR-A, culling what it described as acreage too far from infrastructure to be economic to develop in areas where well results were too small to be commercial.

But ConocoPhillips continued to pick up other acreage in NPR-A.

Its drilling in 2008 and 2009 was closer to infrastructure.

In 2008, ConocoPhillips and its frequent NPR-A partner Anadarko Petroleum, formed the first federal unit in NPR-A, Greater Mooses Tooth.

After ConocoPhillips and Anadarko’s Alpine West (CD-5) satellite in the Colville River unit has been developed, Colville and Mooses Tooth operator ConocoPhillips has said development of CD-6 and CD-7 NPR-A satellites would likely follow, both of which are in the Mooses Tooth unit.

Alpine West production is expected to come online at the end of 2012.

—Kay Cashman