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March 2011

Vol. 16, No. 10 Week of March 06, 2011

Pioneer applies for Torok pool rules

Shallower accumulation to be developed initially from offshore Oooguruk drill site; if successful, onshore drill site will be built

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska has applied to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for pool rules for Oooguruk-Torok, the shallower Torok reservoir at Oooguruk. Pioneer is 70 percent working interest owner and operator at the North Slope unit; Eni Petroleum US has the remaining 30 percent working interest.

Estimated original oil in place in the Torok reservoir is 690 million barrels; with primary recovery of 5 percent, 35 million barrels would be recovered; and with primary and secondary recovery, 20 percent or 138 million barrels could be recovered.

Two initial wells are planned for the first quarter, with injection beginning in the second quarter. Permitting for an onshore drill site began last year and is expected to run through 2013, with onshore facility design on the same schedule.

Onshore drill site construction is planned for 2013-15, with onshore development drilling from 2013-18 and first production from the onshore drill site in 2014-15.

Pioneer told the commission in its pool rules application that it plans to use a horizontal well line-drive pattern immiscible water alternating gas flood to enhance recovery from Oooguruk-Torok, but said that given commercial uncertainties surrounding availability and deliverability of gas to the Oooguruk project, the future volume and rate of injected gas cannot be predicted.

Eastern side of Colville Delta

The Oooguruk-Torok oil pool is on the eastern side of the Colville Delta within the southwest area of the Oooguruk unit. The Torok formation is some 1,000 feet above the Kuparuk and 1,300 feet above the Nuiqsut, the initial producing intervals at Oooguruk.

The Torok sandstone was first penetrated in 1965 by the Sinclair Colville No. 1 well en route to a deeper structural target and Texaco recognized the interval as potentially productive and tested it in both the Colville Delta No. 2 and No. 3 wells. The wells were not stimulated, and flow was very low and consisted primarily of completion fluids with minor amounts of formation crude.

Following modest fracture stimulation, however, the No. 3 well averaged 240 barrels per day over an 84-hour test. The Torok was encountered in other wells and Pioneer has drilled 18 Oooguruk drill site wells through the Torok interval. In 2009 the company salvaged a wellbore which had been planned as an injection well and drilled a lateral into the Torok. That well was fracture stimulated in March 2010 and through January had produced 143,000 barrels over 248 cumulative days of production, demonstrating first commercial production in the proposed Oooguruk-Torok oil pool.

Initial drilling from offshore

Initial development will target the northern area of the Torok pool, reachable from the Oooguruk offshore drill site. Wells, including injectors, will be hydraulically fracture stimulated to enhance productivity and improve vertical injection sweep.

The initial development will serve as a pilot flood of the Torok and provide critical performance and injection data.

Assuming Torok development from the offshore drill site is successful, the core area of the Torok pool would be developed from an onshore drill site on the edge of the Colville Delta.

The offshore development phase is an area of some 1,000 acres, with an estimated 50 million barrels of OOIP; the onshore core area is some 7,000 acres with 290 million barrels of OOIP; and an expansion area contains some 15,000 acres and an estimated 350 million barrels of OOIP.

Pioneer said there is considerable uncertainty in production rates for the Oooguruk-Torok pool given limited data on well performance and uncertainty in drilling time, but the company estimates that over the project life of 20 to 30 years production could average from 4,000 to 9,000 barrels per day, with a peak production rate of 7,000 to 15,000 bpd.






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