Forest drilling at Redoubt; Cosmopolitan well still being tested
Forest Oil updated analysts on its Cook Inlet, Alaska, Redoubt Shoal development as part of a third-quarter conference call Nov. 5.
Craig Clark, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said the rig on the Osprey platform at Redoubt has been moved, for the first time, from one leg to the next. “We spud and are drilling the Redoubt 7 and right now we’re around 13,700 feet,” Clark said. The well is expected to reach a total depth of 16,300 feet later in November.
Clark said Forest had a three-year drilling rig contract at Redoubt which runs out the middle of November. The company will then go month-to-month. After Redoubt No. 7 is drilled, the company could do remedial work on wells on the other leg (where the first wells were drilled), drill more producers or drill some injectors.
“But certainly, I’m not going to put a lot more money into it with the drilling rig driving the program. We now have options which we never had before with that rig contract,” Clark said.
“On the southern end of Cook Inlet, the Cosmo prospect, we still see production test rates from the Hemlock … at about 500 to 550 barrels of oil a day,” he said. Forest is a working interest owner in the ConocoPhillips Alaska operated Cosmopolitan exploration unit.
See story in Nov. 9 issue of Petroleum News.
October ANS production up 2 percent from September
October North Slope production was up 1.73 percent from September, averaging 986,961 barrels per day.
Prudhoe Bay had the largest per-barrel increase, up an average of 23,390 bpd, a 5.23 percent increase over September production, to 470,962 bpd.
Alpine had the largest decrease in production, down 18,609 bpd to 86,359 bpd, a drop of 17.73 percent from September. Alaska Department of Revenue economist Denise Hawes said the Alpine production drop was caused by unplanned maintenance at the field beginning Oct. 23.
Northstar, operated by 98 percent working interest owner BP, had the largest percent increase in production, up 9.17 percent to 74,959 bpd, from a September average of 68,662 bpd.
This is a new high for Northstar, which came online in November 2001.
Daren Beaudo, BP Exploration (Alaska)’s director of public affairs, told Petroleum News that the ‘nameplate’ rating for Northstar is 65,000 barrels per day, a number based on assumptions for such things as the gas-oil ratio.
“As a result of less constraint due to some remedial well stimulations, we’ve lowered the gas production on some wells and are able to process more oil as a result,” Beaudo said.
See story in Nov. 9 issue of Petroleum News.
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