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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
May 2018

Vol. 23, No.19 Week of May 13, 2018

Glacier has high hopes for Starfish

Company expects well to come onto pilot production by mid-year; results could drivefuture drilling and pad construction

Eric Lidji

Petroleum News

The results of the Starfish program will likely guide development work at the Badami unit for several years, according to a development plan for the eastern North Slope unit.

Glacier Oil & Gas Corp. expects to bring the B1-07 exploration well at the Badami unit into production by mid-July 2018. Through its subsidiary Savant Alaska LLC, the company began drilling the well earlier this year outside the existing Badami Sands participating area using Nabors Rig 27E. B1-07 is targeting the Starfish prospect.

According to the 15th plan of development for the Badami unit, filed with the state Division of Oil and Gas on April 18, Glacier expects to bring the B1-07 well “on pilot production” before the end of the current development year on July 16. If warranted by the results of the current well and economic conditions going forward, the company plans to drill as many as two additional wells at Badami during the winter of 201819. Glacier also said that it intends to apply for a new participating area covering Starfish oil production, if the well is successful. And the company noted that a new drilling pad “will likely be necessary” to fully explore and delineate beyond the existing participating areas.

The plan lends credence to a claim Glacier CEO Carl Giesler made to the Alaska Support Industry Alliance last year: “If this well works close to what we think it will, it should open five to seven more prospects similar to it.” In its 2017 plan of development, Glacier described Starfish as one of “several new target ‘pods’ of interest” identified through a review of the Badami and Killian sands. Starfish is “southwest of the current development area within the Badami Sands” participating area in the middle of the unit.

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission issued a permit on Jan. 12 for Savant to drill the Badami B1-07 well on ADL 367011. Although the company is describing the project as exploratory, the commission categorized B1-07 as a development well. (This discrepancy is why an article in the upcoming issue of The Explorers incorrectly stated that Glacier had yet to begin drilling the B1-07 well by the time the issue went to press.)

Badami is uniquely positioned to accommodate new development. The 38,500-barrel-per-day processing facilities at the unit currently handles approximately 1,000 barrels per day, a reminder of the ambitions of the original operator, BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. The Starfish project is the first new drilling at Badami since Savant completed the Badami Unit Red Wolf No. 2 well in April 2012, according to AOGCC well reports. In the intervening years, Savant devoted its resources to workover projects and was stalled by a bankruptcy proceeding involving its former owner Miller Energy Resources Inc.

Through those proceedings, Glacier assumed control of Savant in early 2016. The company initially took a cautious approach to its new properties by focusing on low-risk development projects but began announcing potential exploration work last summer






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