Drilling complete at Icewine No. 1

Drilling is complete at the Icewine No. 1 well on Alaska’s North Slope. The well reached its planned total depth of 11,600 feet on Dec. 24, 88 Energy said in a Dec. 29 statement.

The well’s operator, Accumulate Energy Alaska Inc., is a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Perth, Australia-based 88 Energy. The well was drilled on the Franklin Bluffs gravel pad adjacent to the Dalton Highway some 30 miles south of Deadhorse.

Original acreage was acquired by Burgundy Xploration. In November 2014 88 Energy acquired an 87.5 percent working interest, reducing to 78 percent on spud of the first well in the project, 88 Energy said, with the acreage position significantly increased in the 2015 Alaska North Slope areawide lease sale.

Icewine drilling “successfully achieved all of the primary unconventional objectives of the well,” 88 Energy said, with early analysis suggesting that a large portion of HRZ shale in the Icewine acreage lies in the thermal maturity sweet spot.

The well also tested a number of conventional reservoir targets, 88 Energy said, with elevated gas readings over a gross 58-foot Kuparuk sands interval, and “excellent reservoir quality and hydrocarbon shows” in the shallow Brookian sequence.

After core was acquired in the Pebble Shale the well was drilled to the planned 11,600-foot total depth, with several gas kicks between 11,262 and 11,320.

Evaluation is underway of core, cuttings, logs and mud samples, 88 Energy said.

“The high recovery factor in all three cores taken, including the primary HRZ target and across the bottom seal for the HRZ (Pebble Shale), means that we have excellent data to use in the evaluation of the potentially huge unconventional prize on the Project Icewine acreage,” 88 Energy Managing Director Dave Wall said in the company’s Dec. 28 drilling update.

- KRISTEN NELSON