Kerr-McGee plans well to test for heavy oil on North Slope acreage

Ray Tyson

Kerr-McGee is planning to drill a horizontal appraisal well from its Alaska North Slope acreage this winter to determine whether the Schrader Bluff heavy oil accumulation near Prudhoe Bay extends on to its property.

“It may be possible that a play which has been developing down in (western) Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River … extends on to our acreage as well,” Dave Hager, Kerr-McGee’s vice present of exploration and production, said Nov. 30 at the Friedman Billings Ramsey annual investor conference in New York. Kerr-McGee also plans to drill a horizontal appraisal well this winter to further test its Nikaitchuq discovery in the Sag River formation, plus an exploration well on its West Milne option acreage in the adjoining Tuvaaq unit, Hager said.

“We’re already building the ice islands out there, so we’ll probably spud these wells in January,” he added. The Nikaitchuq and Tuvaaq units are northwest of the Milne Point unit, where BP has Schrader Bluff accumulations on production and north of Kuparuk, where ConocoPhillips is producing from the analogous West Sak accumulation.

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