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Brooks Range re-enters North Shore No. 1 On behalf of joint venture, independent re-enters its North Shore No. 1 well, plans for more North Slope wells later this winter Eric Lidji Petroleum News
Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. re-entered the North Shore No. 1 well on Jan. 10, resuming a project cut short in 2007 when the company didn’t finish work by the end of the winter drilling season.
Brooks Range Petroleum, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kansas-based Alaska Venture Capital Group, re-entered the well using Nabors rig 27E.
The company discovered oil at the offshore well last year, drilling from an onshore pad using Nabors rig 16E to look at an oil accumulation first tested by Mobil in 1975 with the Gwydyr Bay South No. 1 well.
The 1975 testing only looked at the Ivishak formation in the area, but Brooks Range Petroleum returned to the area last year to test both the Ivishak and the nearby Sag formation and found a “potential oil pay” before getting cut short.
“There’s something down there and the whole purpose of us drilling in right now is to prove up those reserves and see what is there,” said Hillary McIntosh, the company’s manager of business development and external affairs.
Before suspending the well, Brooks Range drilled around 13,300 feet to a vertical depth of 10,319 feet and ran casing to approximately 12,500 feet. Now, it plans to sidetrack that casing and re-drill the last 1,000 feet.
Still planning four wells this winter North Shore No. 1 is the first of four wells Brooks Range Petroleum hopes to drill this winter.
Upon completion of the well, the company plans to move Nabors rig 27E southwest to drill the Tofkat No. 1 well and a sidetrack called Tofkat No. 1-A, just east of Nuiqsut along the Colville River.
Following work on Tofkat, it plans to come back and drill North Shore No. 2, a satellite of North Shore No. 1, in the area around Gwydyr Bay.
Low snow cover forced seismic shift The Brooks Range Petroleum winter exploration program originally included some seismic work over the Slugger Prospect Area in the eastern part of the Central North Slope.
But like many companies on the North Slope this winter, low snow cover has restricted off-road access over parts of the tundra, and so the company decided instead to conduct similar surveys on leases on the opposite side of the Central North Slope.
McIntosh said Brooks Range Petroleum hopes to conduct the seismic survey on the eastern part of the slope later in the season, but the decision ultimately “depends on crew availability and timing.”
CGGVeritas is running the seismic operations for Brooks Range Petroleum.
Brooks Range running exploration for JV Brooks Range is operating the exploration program this winter on behalf of a joint venture with TG World Energy Corp., Bow Valley Alaska Corp. and Ramshorn Investments Inc.
AVCG has a 20 percent working interest in both North Shore No. 1 and the North Shore satellite, and a 30 percent working interest in both of the Tofkat wells and the seismic work.
TG World has a 35 percent working interest in North Shore No. 1 and the North Shore satellite, and a 25 percent working interest in both of the Tofkat wells and the seismic work.
Ramshorn has a 25 percent working interest in all four wells and the seismic work, while Bow Valley has a 20 percent working interest in the five parts of the 2008 winter exploration program.
The group said any prospects found during this seismic work could become part of the 2009 or 2010 drilling seasons.
“Clearly there is a lot of work to be done during this season’s multiple-well program and we look forward in continuing where we left off last year,” Cliff James, president and CEO of TG World, said in a statement. “Based on the JV’s current prospect inventory, we have more drill candidates in the pipeline than we can currently handle in one season, which sets us up nicely for future programs.”
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