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October 2017

Vol. 22, No. 41 Week of October 08, 2017

Icewine down for winter

3-D seismic shoot planned for March, continuing production tests for April, May

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Work at the Icewine 2 well has been shut down for the winter, 88 Energy Ltd. said in an operations update released Oct. 1. Icewine is a joint project of Australia-based 88 Energy Ltd. (the company’s Alaska operating branch is Accumulate Energy Alaska Inc.) and Burgundy Xploration of Houston.

Icewine was drilled off the Dalton Highway south of North Slope producing fields on an existing gravel pad.

Activity planned for this winter and next spring includes 3-D seismic to be shot in March and continuing the production test at Icewine 2 in April and May, 88 Energy said.

The plan for spring includes installation of narrower gauge tubing and use of artificial lift to complete flow testing at Icewine 2, and possible drilling of a follow-up lateral with multistage stimulation, which 88 Energy said would be “contingent upon outcome of final flow testing” of the Icewine 2 well.

Winter shut-in

The company said the Icewine 2 well was shut-in for the winter Sept. 18, and had flowed an average of 1.85 thousand cubic feet per day of gas, “with increasing ratio of heavy components,” during the test period which began at the end of August.

The projected minimum target for frack fluid recovery was 30 percent, 88 Energy said, with 20 percent recovered. It said the results were “not considered representative of potential flow rate or composition of hydrocarbon in the reservoir.” By using artificial lift next spring, the company hopes to optimize and re-initiate flow testing.

Conventional prospects

The Icewine wells targeted the HRZ shale, but the company is also targeting conventional resources, with a focus on what it calls its western play fairway, where it has acquired and reprocessed 625 miles of “vintage” 2-D seismic and plans to acquire some 200 square miles of 3-D seismic “to firm up drilling candidates.”

88 Energy said it is permitting drilling locations and 3-D seismic for the winter of 2018. The acquisition of 3-D seismic is set for March of 2018, which the company said would allow it to firm up drilling candidates for the first half of 2019 “and launch farm-out process.”

As reported by Petroleum News in late August, Accumulate Energy Alaska, 88 Energy’s local operating company, has begun permitting for two winter exploration wells, Bravo 1 and Charlie 1, some 22 to 25 miles west of the Franklin Bluffs gravel pad where Icewine 1 and 2 were drilled. While the August application, filed with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, indicated that those wells were planned for the winter of 2018, the current operation report would seem to indicate that the company is now deferring drilling to the winter of 2019, with a focus this winter on seismic acquisition.






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