ConocoPhillips and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. have sanctioned the first two Alpine satellites, Fiord and Nanuq, and will lay pad and road gravel this winter and begin development drilling.
The companies said Dec. 20 that they approved development of the two Alpine satellite oil fields following recent favorable record of decision rulings from the Bureau of Land Management and the Corps of Engineers on the Alpine satellites environmental impact statement.
John Whitehead, ConocoPhillips Alaska’s vice president, western North Slope, told Petroleum News the company has “a big ice road season planned,” with “a little over 80 miles of ice road” for both exploration and satellite work. Work this winter includes “laying all the gravel for the road to Nanuq and the gravel pads at both Nanuq and Fiord,” Whitehead said. Pipeline work will also be started this winter. “We won’t be putting any pipelines in,” he said, “but we’ll be putting all the pilings and VSMs (vertical support members) to Fiord” as well as pilings on the Fiord and Nanuq pads and some on the Alpine pad.
The VSMs for Nanuq will be put in during the 2005-06 winter season, which is when pipelines will be welded and put on the VSMs, he said.
Two satellite drill sites
The project includes two satellite drill sites, CD-3 on the Fiord oil field and CD-4 on the Nanuq oil field, both within an eight-mile radius from the ConocoPhillips Alaska-operated Alpine oil field on the border of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The satellite oil fields will be developed exclusively with horizontal well technology and employ enhanced oil recovery, similar to the Alpine field, ConocoPhillips said.
Oil from Fiord and Nanuq will be processed through existing Alpine facilities. Production at Alpine, which came on line in November 2000, was originally estimated at 80,000 barrels per day, the company said, but the field is currently producing an average of 115,000 bpd.
ConocoPhillips said plans call for drilling some 40 wells at Fiord and Nanuq, with first production scheduled for late 2006 and peak production of approximately 35,000 bpd expected in 2008. Combined production from Alpine, Fiord and Nanuq is expected to peak at 135,000 bpd in late 2007, the company said.
Drilling to begin this winter
Whitehead said other work this winter will include fabricating drill site buildings.
“Plans are to fabricate modules in Alaska,” he said. Modules will be trucked to the North Slope and go out to the satellites on the 2005-06 ice road. In early to middle 2006 the drill site buildings at Nanuq and Fiord will be installed and hooked up.
Development drilling will also start at the Fiord and Nanuq pads this winter, he said.
Alpine, Badami and Northstar are roadless production facilities, and Fiord “will be the first roadless drill site” on the North Slope, Whitehead said. Access will be by ice road and plane. The rig to Fiord will go out each year on an ice road, and be taken off the pad at the end of the winter season. ConocoPhillips will use the rig that’s working at Alpine, Whitehead said. In 2005 that rig will drill more wells at Alpine, a couple of wells at Fiord over the winter, and later in the year it will drill at Nanuq. Nanuq will be connected to the main Alpine pad by a gravel road.
Between ice road construction, gravel work and VSM work for the new satellites and other work at Alpine, it will be a busy winter season, Whitehead said. Satellite-related jobs are expected to peak at 500, including onsite construction work, engineering work and fabrication jobs at facilities in Alaska, he said.
Ice road work began with some pre-packing between Kuparuk and the Colville River, Whitehead said, and work is “ramping up now on all of the ice roads.”
ConocoPhillips Alaska spokeswoman Dawn Patience told Petroleum News that some satellite work was awarded recently and some of the work has started, including engineering for facilities and pipelines by VECO; civil engineering by PND Inc. Engineering Consultants; and VSM work at The Weld Shop in Fairbanks. Patience said contracts have not yet been awarded for fabrication work.
Fiord drilling began in 1992
ConocoPhillips Alaska predecessor ARCO Alaska and partner Anadarko said in July 1999 that Fiord was estimated to contain more than 50 million barrels of proven and potential reserves. The companies said the Fiord No. 5 exploration well, drilled in the winter of 1998-99, encountered a 60-foot vertical section of oil-bearing sand in a Jurassic reservoir and a 15-foot vertical section of oil-bearing sand in the Kuparuk formation.
The Jurassic reservoir tested 1,400 bpd of 29 degree API gravity oil and 0.65 million standard cubic feet a day of gas after fracture stimulation. A subsequent combined flow test of the Jurassic and unstimulated Kuparuk reservoir yielded 2,500 bpd of 30 degree API gravity oil and 1.2 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.
ARCO began drilling at Fiord in 1992 and in December of that year announced a discovery at the Fiord No. 1 well. ARCO said the Fiord No. 1 was productive from two intervals.
ConocoPhillips Alaska predecessor Phillips Alaska and partner Anadarko announced the 40 million barrel Nanuq discovery in July 2001. The field was discovered in April 2000 with the Nanuq No. 2 exploration well and delineated from the Alpine CD-1 drill site in 2001.
The Alpine, Nanuq and Fiord oil fields are owned 78 percent by ConocoPhillips and 22 percent by Anadarko.
ConocoPhillips said the companies will continue to pursue state, local and federal permits for the three remaining Alpine satellite developments, which are in NPR-A. “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.”
