Production began Nov. 27 from Nanuq, the second satellite to come online at the ConocoPhillips Alaska-operated Alpine field in the Colville River unit. ConocoPhillips holds 78 percent of the working interest in the unit; Anadarko Petroleum Corp. holds the other 22 percent.
Nanuq is three miles south of the Alpine field on Alaska’s North Slope. Production from Nanuq is expected to peak at some 15,000 barrels per day in 2008.
Nanuq was discovered in 2000, ConocoPhillips said in a statement, and will be developed exclusively with horizontal well technology, as was the Alpine field. Both gas and water injection enhanced oil recovery will be used at Nanuq, with 19 wells planned.
Production from the first Alpine satellite, Fiord, some five miles north of the main field, began in August, and is also expected to peak in 2008.
ConocoPhillips said construction of Nanuq and Fiord involved more than 1,400 people over the last two winter seasons. To minimize environmental impact, 50 miles of temporary ice roads constructed during the winter were used to move construction equipment, facilities, drilling rigs and drilling supplies to the satellites and to Alpine.
Production processed at Alpine
Alpine is 35 miles west of Kuparuk on the border of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and is not connected to the North Slope road system. Nanuq is connected to the Alpine facilities by road; Fiord is a road-less drill site, reached by ice road and by air, with drilling only in the winter season.
Production from both Nanuq and Fiord will be processed through existing Alpine facilities. Together, the two fields represent approximately $675 million in capital reinvestment; peak combined production, in 2008, is estimated at some 35,000 bpd.
ConocoPhillips said it is pursuing state, local and federal permits for additional Alpine satellite developments, including the recently announced Qannik reservoir.
Alpine, which came online in late 2000, is the third-largest field on the North Slope, behind Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk. Production averaged less than 30,000 bpd in November 2000, but by June 2001, at 88,551 bpd, Alpine had topped Northstar production and has been the third most productive field on the North Slope since.
Production at Alpine neared 130,000 bpd as Nanuq came on line in late November. Prudhoe and Lisburne had combined November high production volumes of almost 380,000 bpd and Kuparuk had peak November production of almost 210,000 bpd.
When the two satellites were sanctioned in late 2004, the company said combined production from Alpine, Fiord and Nanuq is expected to peak at 135,000 bpd in late 2007.
Qannik next
The next Alpine satellite to be developed will be Qannik, said Georg Storaker, ConocoPhillips Alaska vice president of operations.
The Qannik accumulation, which overlies Alpine, was tested for 19 days in June with the CD2-404 well, ConocoPhillips said in July when it announced the discovery.
The company applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expand the CD-2 pad at Alpine for development of the Qannik reservoir and to allow for additional storage for Alpine CD projects (see story in Aug. 20, 2006, issue of Petroleum News).
The expansion would make room for 18 Qannik wells.
The Corps said the proposed schedule would begin with gravel placement this winter, followed by facility construction and installation between the summer of 2007 and the winter of 2008, development drilling beginning in the spring of 2008 and production start-up scheduled for summer to fall of 2008.
As for other Alpine satellite developments, ConocoPhillips Alaska spokeswoman Dawn Patience said the company “will continue to pursue the outcome of state, local and federal permits for the three remaining Alpine satellite developments in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (Alpine West, Spark and Lookout).”
“A final decision to move forward on these three satellite oil fields will not be sanctioned until after the outcomes of remaining permits are known,” she said.
In applications filed last fall for CD-5, Alpine West, the company said that proposed development would be on Kuukpik Corp. surface land some six miles west/southwest of the Alpine Central Processing Facility (see story in Sept. 25, 2005, issue of Petroleum News).
CD-5 is in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on subsurface transferred to the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and the area to be developed includes acreage leased by ConocoPhillips and Anadarko from ASRC, the State of Alaska and the Bureau of Land Management. ASRC has the majority of subsurface ownership at Alpine West, with a minor portion owned by the state and BLM.
The CD-5 pad would be across the Nigliq Channel from the main Alpine facilities and a 1,200-foot vehicle and pipeline bridge would be needed.
