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Nordic-Calista rig contracted for’19 well
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
88 Energy said Aug. 29 that its wholly owned subsidiary Captivate Energy Alaska has contracted the Nordic-Calista Services rig 3 to drill the Winx prospect.
Winx is on a block of four Great Bear Petroleum Leases in which 88 Energy Ltd., Otto Energy Ltd. and Red Emperor Ltd. acquired a collective 90 percent interest earlier in the year. The lease terms, set to expire April 30, were extended by the Division of Oil and Gas to April 30, 3021, contingent on the drilling of an exploration well by May 30, 2019.
The 88 Energy consortium said when the lease acquisition and extension were announced that they would meet that drilling commitment and said they would target the Nanushuk play. The block on which the Winx prospect lies is east of discovery wells at Horseshoe and west of Meltwater.
88 Energy said at that time that Otto Energy had used seismic data acquired from the division to identify a prospect at a depth of some 5,000 feet in the Nanushuk.
In its Aug. 29 statement 88 Energy said the Winx 1 well will test a 3-D seismically defined oil prospect in the Nanushuk play fairway “comprising multiple stacked objectives with a gross mean unrisked prospective resource” of 400 million barrels. The company rated the geological chance of success at 25-30 percent.
Nordic-Calista Services rig 3 is a single module, self-propelled drilling rig, capable of drilling to depths of 12,000-14,500 feet, 88 Energy said, and has previously been used for grassroots drilling, exploration, sidetracks ad workovers on the North Slope.
Western Block 88 Energy said it is earning a 36 percent working interest in the four leases in the western block, totaling 22,171 acres, with its consortium partners Otto Energy and Red Emperor Resources, with Otto eventually having a 22.5 percent interest and Red Emperor 31.5 percent.
All three companies are based in Australia.
The companies have posted a $3 million performance bond to the state and will fund 100 percent of the costs of the well. The bond was a requirement of the state to extend the term of the leases, along with the requirement to drill a well.
88 Energy has been investigating the potential for source rock development on leases straddling the Dalton Highway, and is also investigating conventional prospects on its acreage. Project Icewine was 88 Energy’s first North Slope venture, with a gross acreage position of some 475,000 acres, 301,000 acres net to 88 Energy. Icewine 1 has been drilled and evaluated. Drilling at Icewine 2, an appraisal well, concluded in 2017, with production testing at that well concluded in June.
These wells targeted the HRZ.
The company said conventional prospects have been identified in recently acquired 2-D and 3-D seismic across project acreage.
88 Energy also has 100 percent working interest via a subsidiary in Yukon Gold leases acquired earlier this year, some 14,194 acres. The leases contain the Yukon Gold 1, a historic discovery well. The company said 3-D seismic was acquired in early 2018 to assist with evaluation of the Yukon Gold acreage.
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