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BRPC spuds Sak River well First of exploration season, company planning North Shore No. 3 for February Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. spud the Sak River No. 1A well in the Gwydyr Bay region of the Alaska North Slope on Jan. 26, the company said in a statement.
The well is a sidetrack of Sak River No. 1, a suspended well drilled in early 2007.
Now that BRPC has re-entered the well, it plans to remove a cement plug set to 4,225 feet, at the base of the surface casing, and then drill a new hole. BRPC said it intends to drill Sak River No. 1A to a total depth of some 12,500 feet, and expects to finish the well sometime in early February. Sak River No. 1A aims to test an oil prospect in the Kuparuk formation previously identified by proprietary 3-D seismic data.
Sak River No. 1A sits on state lease ADL 390431, inside the newly formed onshore-offshore Beechey Point unit. BRPC is drilling the well using Nabors Rig 16E. The company is drilling the well from an onshore ice pad to a bottom hole offshore.
Sak River No. 1A is the first in a multiwell program BPRC and its partners have planned for the North Slope this winter. After completing the well, BRPC plans to move Nabors Rig 16E a mile and a half south to drill the North Shore No. 3 well. That well will test an independent Sag River-Ivishak closure also located within the Beechey Point unit.
In late December, BRPC received drilling permits from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for two sidetracks, Sak River No. 1A and Sak River No. 1B.
Work commitments for unit The BRPC Group exploration program this winter helps fulfill work commitments the joint venture made to the state under the Beechey Point unit plan of exploration.
The BRPC Group is also permitting a North Tarn No. 1 well on state lease ADL 390680 one mile west of the western boundary of the Kuparuk River unit. If the group doesn’t get to North Tarn No. 1 this winter, it plans to drill it in the winter of 2011-12.
Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. is a subsidiary of Kansas-based Alaska Venture Capital Group and the operator of an ongoing exploration program on behalf of a joint venture including TG World Energy Inc., and the Nabors-subsidiary Ramshorn Investments Inc.
“The BRPC Group appreciates those who have supported our progress on this project, including the State of Alaska for approving the Beechey Point unit, the North Slope Borough for approving the BPU Rezone, and the major facility owners on the North Slope for access to existing infrastructure,” Jim Winegarner, vice president of land and external affairs for BRPC, said in a prepared statement.
While development drilling continues at fields across the North Slope this winter, including projects like ExxonMobil’s development of the Point Thomson unit, BRPC is the only company drilling exploration wells on the North Slope this season.
AVCG’s decade of interest The Gwydyr Bay area is an oil puzzle for oil development.
Since 1969, companies have drilled some 15 wells in the area, but previous oil discoveries never proved large enough to justify the high cost of Arctic development.
The Alaska Venture Capital Group took an interest in the region as far back as 1999, when the company formed with the express intent of pursuing overlooked oil prospects.
BRPC, the operating arm of Alaska Venture Capital Group, began drilling in Alaska in early 2007, starting with the North Shore No. 1 and Sak River No. 1 exploration wells.
North Shore No. 1, drilled to “a final true vertical depth of 10,319 feet (13,309 feet measured depth),” encountered 70 feet of oil-charged Ivishak formation. After re-entering the well in early 2008, a flow test yielded 2,092 barrels per day of oil from the Ivishak formation. (A mechanical issue compromised testing of the Sag River formation.)
But Sak River No. 1, drilled to “a final true vertical depth of 11,348 feet (13,110 feet measured depth),” did not encounter any hydrocarbons and BRPC suspended the well.
A discovery at Sak River No. 1A would bolster the case for developing Beechey Point.
When the company asked the state to form the Beechey Point unit in May 2009, it said in filings that, “Development of just one of these reservoirs would be uneconomic, however, developing more than one at the same time from the same pad and infrastructure offers synergies which allow a group of them to be developed economically.”
The 52,876-acre Beechey Point unit, formed last fall, sits on the Beaufort Sea coast, nestled among several legacy units: Prudhoe Bay to the south, Kuparuk to the west and Northstar to the northeast. The 25 leases in the unit include the site of the undeveloped North Shore No. 1 and Pete’s Wicked oil discoveries. BRPC said any discovery at Sak River No. 1A would likely be developed together with existing discoveries in the unit.
North Tarn plans fleshed out The newly added North Tarn exploration prospect sits on six leases west of the Kuparuk River unit, according to TG World Energy Corp., one of the partners in the group. (See “Farm-in at North Tarn,” in Jan. 24, 2010, issue at www.petroleumnews.com/pnads/905719642.shtml.)
TG World said the leases are contiguous to the west side of the Kuparuk River unit.
The North Tarn exploration prospect is based on the mapping of 3-D seismic data, the company said. The prospect includes two prospective reservoir zones, both productive at the Kuparuk River unit. TG World said the joint venture plans to test the zones using a well drilled in the 2010-11 exploration season to a depth of some 6,500 feet.
TG World will earn a 20 percent interest in the farm-in.
“We are encouraged by the potential of the North Tarn prospect,” Cliff James, TG World president, said in a statement. “Not only does it offer a new area of exploration for TG World on the North Slope of Alaska, but it also presents a prospect that is surrounded by large proven and producing fields.”
TG World is paying 45.7 percent of the well costs at Sak River No. 1 A in return for a 35 percent working interest in the unit.
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