|
ConocoPhillips files applications for new viscous oil development
ConocoPhillips Alaska has added another project to those it has announced since passage of oil tax reform by the Alaska Legislature last spring.
The company said Feb. 18 that it has submitted permit applications for a viscous oil development targeting the West Sak reservoir at Kuparuk River.
The development, 1H NEWS, Northeast West Sak, includes a nine-acre extension to existing drill site 1H, which would support new wells and associated facilities.
The company said project approval is anticipated in late 2014 with construction beginning in 2015 and continuing through 2016.
First oil would be in 2017 for the $450 million project, with production expected to peak at 9,000 barrels of oil per day. There would be some 150 jobs during construction.
Third new project The company said this is the third new project it has initiated since the Alaska Legislature passed oil reform legislation, Senate Bill 21, in the spring of 2013.
After passage of SB 21 ConocoPhillips announced plans to pursue development of Greater Mooses Tooth No. 1 in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and drill site 2S in the Kuparuk River unit.
“Combined with 1H NEWS, these three new projects would represent an investment of about $2 billion, significant new production, and jobs for hundreds of workers during construction,” Trond-Erik Johansen, president of ConocoPhillips Alaska, said in a statement.
“In addition to our plans for these new projects, we have also added two rigs to the Kuparuk fleet,” Johansen said. “These rigs are already adding production and providing several hundred new jobs for Alaskans.”
The company said it “believes the improved business climate created by tax reform will continue to create jobs for Alaskans and Alaska businesses, add new revenue for the state and add tens of thousands of barrels of new production from the North Slope,” and also said that it expects to have more “North Slope production-adding investments to announce in the near future.”
Kuparuk satellite West Sak is a Kuparuk River satellite, a shallow viscous oil accumulation. Drilling began in 2000 and 2001 from the core West Sak area in the south and Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission records show 68.3 million barrels of West Sak production at Kuparuk through the end of 2013.
Appraisal drilling was done in the NEWS area, north and northwest of the core area, in 2005-06 at drill sites 1Q and 3J and from an ice pad north of drill site 1H.
A NEWS participation area was approved by the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas in 2009.
West Sak satellite development was identified by former ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva in April 2011 as a project the company would pursue if the production tax, then ACES, Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share, was changed. Mulva spoke in Anchorage as Gov. Sean Parnell’s first attempt at oil tax reform was going down in defeat.
—Kristen Nelson
| 