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March 2014

Vol. 19, No. 10 Week of March 09, 2014

Once idle Osprey platform is flying high

Operator Cook Inlet Energy completes rework of one well, prepares to drill another; platform is now inlet’s No. 2 oil producer

Wesley Loy

For Petroleum News

Cook Inlet Energy LLC’s continuing efforts to restore and boost oil and gas production from the Osprey offshore platform, which once languished in “lighthouse mode,” appear to be coming along swimmingly.

The company recently reworked an existing well, and said it would soon start drilling a new well to tap oil reserves southwest of the platform.

Since acquiring idle Osprey in December 2009, Cook Inlet Energy has whipped the platform into one of the basin’s top performers.

During the last three months of 2013, Osprey produced an average of 1,746 barrels of oil per day, data from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission shows. That put Osprey at No. 2 among the inlet’s 16 platforms, trailing Hilcorp’s Monopod platform with an average of 2,436 barrels a day.

Anchorage-based Cook Inlet Energy is a subsidiary of Miller Energy Resources Inc., a publicly traded company headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn.

Osprey is the youngest and southernmost platform in Cook Inlet. It stands in the Redoubt unit.

The company bought the platform, along with other west inlet assets, out of the bankruptcy of Pacific Energy Resources Ltd.

Forcenergy originally installed Osprey in 2000.

New perforations

Miller announced in a Feb. 20 press release that the RU-7 oil well was brought back online after a successful rework to add about 56 feet of new perforations in the primary crude interval, the Hemlock.

“The rework consisted of pulling the electrical submersible pump and then completing, perforating and reinstalling the ESP,” the company said. “Results of the rework will be announced after the well’s production has stabilized and been tested.”

During the RU-7 rework, improvements were made to the platform and drilling rig, the company said. A grind-and-inject unit was installed, and a more powerful topdrive was added to the rig.

These improvements are expected to improve efficiency and lower drilling costs, the company said.

Cook Inlet Energy had the Osprey rig, known as rig 35, custom built in Texas at a cost of nearly $18 million. It came online in August 2012.

Cook Inlet Energy’s next scheduled Osprey drilling project is RU-9, described as a “step-out oil well.”

“RU-9 is intended to capture oil reserves from a large four-way structure located approximately 2.5 miles southwest of the Osprey platform,” Miller’s Feb. 20 press release said. “The primary objective for the RU-9 well will be the Hemlock formation, the principal producing formation in the Redoubt Shoal field. The company expects to begin drilling RU-9 within the next two weeks. The well will take approximately three months to drill and complete.”

West Mac update

Cook Inlet Energy also operates the West McArthur River unit, an oil field located on the western shore of Cook Inlet.

The company is wrapping up a new development well in the field, the WMRU-8.

“WMRU-8 has been drilled to a final measured depth of approximately 15,535 feet,” the Miller press release said. “The primary objective is the Hemlock, with a secondary target located in the pre-tertiary Jurassic oil zone. The well is intended to provide a take point for the Hemlock reservoir previously logged, but not tested, in the WMRU-7 well. Casing has been installed and cemented over the Hemlock interval and the final casing section is currently being installed over the Jurassic interval. Based on well log analysis, the company plans to perforate approximately 106 feet of the Hemlock formation, 17 feet of the West Foreland formation, and 150 feet of the Jurassic formation.”

The press release continued: “The Jurassic formation lays below the prolific Hemlock oil reservoir at the McArthur River and WMRU fields. Another operator in the region has previously produced oil from fractured Jurassic rocks at the adjacent McArthur River field. The Jurassic is presumed to be the source rock for the oil in the ... Hemlock and West Foreland reservoirs in the Cook Inlet region. The Jurassic formation remains a relatively underexplored target in the Cook Inlet due to its depth.”

Cook Inlet Energy’s chief executive, David Hall, said the company was “very pleased with the positive log analysis in the Hemlock and Jurassic intervals in the WMRU-8 well.”






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