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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
February 2012

Vol. 17, No. 8 Week of February 19, 2012

Repsol exploration well blows out

Qugruk 2 well hits shallow gas pocket; no injuries or damage reported; shallow gas survey done before drilling didn’t spot anything

Eric Lidji

For Petroleum News

Repsol E&P USA experienced a gas kick at a North Slope exploration well on Feb. 15, but early reports suggest the incident did not cause any injuries or major damage.

The Spanish major experienced the kick around 9 a.m., when the Qugruk 2 well hit a shallow gas pocket around 2,500 feet, forcing approximately 42,000 gallons of fresh-water-based drilling mud onto the gravel pad and surrounding snow covered tundra.

The diverter successfully vented the gas coming from the well, but Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation officials couldn’t estimate the amount released so far.

Repsol shut down the rig and evacuated all 76 workers from the well site.

“You never like it when you lose control of a well, but in this situation Repsol did everything right and all their equipment and protocol worked exact as it was supposed to,” Cathy Foerster of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission said.

Gas flow stopped

Although the well was still not under control as of press time, Repsol said the “continuous flow” of gas had stopped as of 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 15 and the well was “producing a moderate flow of water, with small amounts of intermittent natural gas bubbles.” That short timeline suggests the gas pocket was relatively small.

The Q2 well is located in the Colville River Delta, around 75 miles west of Deadhorse.

Repsol contracted the O’Briens Group to manage the incident, and hired Wild Well Control Co. out of Houston to manage the well, according to a report from the state.

The AOGCC requires exploration companies to conduct a shallow gas hazards survey before drilling a well, but “we didn’t see any shallow gas hazard. And what that tells you is that our technology isn’t perfect,” Foerster said. “You can still miss something.”

Blowout first since early 1990s

The blowout is believed to be the first on the North Slope since the early 1990s. The ARCO Cirque No. 1 well hit a shallow gas pocket in 1992 and took two weeks to plug. In 1994, BP Exploration hit a shallow gas pocket at the I-53 well at the Endicott field, forcing the company to evacuate personnel and constrain production at the main island.

The Q2 well is part of a major oil exploration campaign that Repsol kicked off this year in the fairway between the Kuparuk River unit and the Colville River unit. Repsol originally planned to drill as many as 15 wells this winter, but permitting issues forced the company to reduce its penetration count to nine.

Repsol initially planned to drill the Q2 well to a total depth of around 7,000 feet.

The incident will likely delay operations considerably.

Before it can resume drilling, Repsol must first regain control of the well and then assess the condition of the well to determine if the existing hole is still useable. It must also get approval from state officials and thaw out the rig that is currently freezing on the slope.

“So it’s going to take them some time,” Foerster said.






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