|
Moose Pad online
Hilcorp’s new Milne Point pad producing 3,000 bpd, should peak at 22,000
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Hilcorp Alaska brought its new Moose Pad at Milne Point online in early April.
The initial production rate is 3,000 barrels per day from two wells, Hilcorp Alaska spokeswoman Lori Nelson told Petroleum News in an April 15 email.
“Drilling and facility construction activities are ongoing,” Nelson said, adding that those facilities will make additional production possible from a planned total of more than 25 producing wells.
In a presentation last November at the Resource Development Council’s annual conference, David Wilkins, the company’s senior vice president for Alaska, said Moose Pad is the first new pad built at Milne Point since 2002. He said it can accommodate 50 to 70 wells. Unusually for the North Slope, Wilkins said, this pad includes processing facilities on the same pad as the wells.
Pad construction began in 2017. Processing facilities at the pad can handle 85,000 barrels of fluid per day.
$400 million to be invested Nelson said that Hilcorp will invest a total of $400 million “to fully develop Moose Pad and its facilities.”
Peak production from Moose Pad is expected to be some 22,000 barrels per day.
Hilcorp acquired a 50% interest in Milne Point as part of its 2014 acquisition from BP of properties on the North Slope; BP had been the field’s operator since 1994 and retains a 50% interest. The Milne Point discovery was made in 1969 by Standard Oil Company of California and the field was initially delineated and then developed by Conoco Inc. beginning in 1980, with regular production beginning in 1985 from the Kuparuk River oil pool.
The most recent production data available for Milne Point from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is for February, prior to startup of the Moose Pad and shows Milne Point production at 23,108 bpd.
Schrader Bluff Moose Pad is on the western edge of the Milne Point unit. The western half of the unit is undeveloped, although previous operator BP explored it with the Pesado No. 1 well and sidetrack at ADL 25515 and the Liviano No. 1 well and sidetrack at ADL 25514 in early 2007. BP plugged and abandoned those wells.
After taking over Milne in 2014, Hilcorp spent much of 2015 doing some 54 workover operations on existing wells. At the end of the year, Hilcorp began a new development program at Milne, drilling three wells at L Pad and eight wells spread across B Pad, C Pad, J Pad, K Pad and L Pad. Hilcorp first mentioned plans for Moose Pad in 2016.
The initial target from the Moose Pad is oil in the Schrader Bluff formation on leases ADL 25514, ADL 25515 and ADL 25509, the company said in permitting submitted in 2016. Both production and injection wells are planned.
| 