|
Gas future at Mooses Tooth NPR-A: Lookout an oil discovery; ConocoPhillips targets oil at Spark, Rendezvous Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
ConocoPhillips Alaska is doing appraisal work in its newly approved Mooses Tooth unit in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. (See “Mooses Tooth processing at Alpine” in Feb. 10 issue at www.petroleumnews.com/pnads/501786075.shtml.)
And it’s looking for oil.
But there is also gas in the Mooses Tooth unit, Erec Isaacson told Petroleum News Feb. 11.
The discovery at Lookout, one of five possible participating areas at Mooses Tooth, is oil, said Isaacson, ConocoPhillips Alaska’s vice president of exploration and land.
But other discoveries in the unit are both gas and condensate.
“The proven oil is Lookout; we’re trying to find more oil.”
Isaacson said the goal is to have oil production from both Lookout (proposed CD-6 pad) and Spark and Rendezvous (proposed CD-7 pad) in the short term.
That would allow production from Mooses Tooth perhaps as early as 2012 or 2013, he said.
“In the long term it would be a gas producing unit,” he said.
And that will require a gas pipeline off the North Slope, something which isn’t expected for a decade.
Looking for oil with the gas This winter’s appraisal work ties into “stepping across the Nigliq Channel of the Colville River and getting over to NPR-A with that first set of developments,” Isaacson said.
Spark and Rendezvous will be tested for oil this winter. (See related maps on page 19.)
Rendezvous 2 will be reentered and fracture stimulated.
Isaacson said the plan for Rendezvous is to reenter the well, which was drilled but not tested in 2001, and evaluate it to determine whether it can be stimulated. If the well is stimulated then the company will do a long-term flow test. Some stimulations are done elsewhere on the North Slope, but most of the slope has better quality rock than what is being found in NPR-A, he said.
“One of the key things there is to determine what type of fluids we have down dip.” The Rendezvous A well, he said, was tested up dip.
Results at Rendezvous A were announced by Phillips Alaska (now ConocoPhillips Alaska) and Anadarko Petroleum in May 2001, when the partners first reported on initial drilling in the winters of 1999-2000 and 2000-01.
The discoveries, in the Jurassic Alpine producing horizon, were at Spark, Moose’s Tooth, Lookout and Rendezvous.
Rendezvous A was tested at an unstimulated rate of 360 barrels per day of liquid hydrocarbons and 6.6 million cubic feet per day of natural gas.
Rendezvous 2 was one of three wells temporarily suspended to allow further evaluation at a later date.
Spark down dip scheduled The appraisal well at Spark, the Spark DD or Spark Down Dip, is also a search for oil.
In 2001 the companies said the Spark 1A well tested at 1,550 barrels per day of liquid hydrocarbons and 26.5 million cubic feet per day of gas at a flowing tubing pressure of 1,500 psig.
In 2004, ConocoPhillips and Anadarko said they had successfully appraised the 2001 Spark discovery with the Carbon 1 and Spark 4. The Carbon 1 was about five miles northwest of the Spark 1A. An unstimulated Carbon well test flowed at a maximum rate of 24 million cubic feet per day of gas and 1,250 barrels per day of condensate with a fluid gravity of 59 degrees API. The Spark 4, some three miles northeast of Carbon 1, penetrated a similar hydrocarbon-bearing reservoir interval but was not tested, the companies said.
The earlier tests showed “a lot of condensate” but “not a lot of liquids,” Isaacson said.
“We think there’s the possibility that we have an oil leg at the Spark and Rondy (Rendezvous) discoveries,” he said. The objective this year is to look down dip.
There is a rich gas cap and “what we’re hoping to see … on the Rendezvous 2 test” is an oil rim, an oil leg down dip from the gas.
“So it’s basically appraisal wells on the discoveries” in NPR-A.
The Spark DD is scheduled to spud in March, subject to completion of drilling at the Char well southwest of Fiord.
The Spark DD will be a horizontal well and will not be stimulated.
Isaacson said if things go according to schedule the company will be stimulating and perforating Rendezvous and drilling Char at the same time. While Char is being stimulated and tested, the rig will be drilling Spark Down Dip; and by the time testing is done at Spark, it will be time to get off the tundra for the season.
Permitting could be joint Mooses Tooth oil would be processed at Alpine’s CD-1, the main production pad, which also handles crude oil from CD-2, CD-3 (Fiord) and CD-4 (Nanuq).
ConocoPhillips is still working on permits for Alpine West, which would be the CD-5 pad, with permits needed from both the Corps of Engineers and the North Slope Borough.
Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Pat Richardson said Feb. 13 that the public notice process “is completed and we are working on a decision document.” She said it would probably be another two months before the decision is finalized.
Isaacson said while ConocoPhillips is still working on permitting CD-5, the company is also looking at the possibility of permitting the whole program together: CD-5 (Alpine West); CD-6 (Lookout); and CD-7 (Spark and Rendezvous).
Of the original discoveries in NPR-A, Lookout is the fully appraised oil discovery.
Lookout was one of the discovery wells announced in 2001. ConocoPhillips and Anadarko said in 2004 that Lookout was appraised in 2002. The Lookout 2 appraisal well tested at 4,000 bpd of oil with an API gravity of 40 degrees and 8 million cubic feet of natural gas.
Ownership at both the Colville River Unit (Alpine) and the Mooses Tooth Unit is ConocoPhillips 78 percent and Anadarko 22 percent.
| 