The BLM actions have the effect of extending several ConocoPhillips leases that were due to expire at the end of August.
In exchange, ConocoPhillips has pledged to drill an exploration well in both the new unit and the expanded unit. It also will test the suspended Scout 1 well, which was spud in 2004.
The 105,655-acre Bear Tooth unit and the Greater Mooses Tooth unit, now expanded to 164,014 acres, are both in the NPR-A’s northeast corner.
The unit decisions are a good deal all around, said Greg Noble, acting chief of BLM Alaska’s energy and minerals branch.
“Units are supposed to be beneficial to both parties,” he said. “The lessees get more time to explore their leases and the government gets a commitment that further exploration will occur.”
While many leases were unitized, ConocoPhillips and partners Anadarko and Pioneer Natural Resources let 43 other leases go covering about 500,000 gross acres, company spokeswoman Natalie Lowman told Petroleum News on Aug. 2.
The surrendered leases didn’t fit the company’s strategic plans based on their potential for development, she said. What’s more, many were in the very remote northwest section of the NPR-A, far to the west of existing production infrastructure at the Alpine field.
No oil has yet been produced from sites within the NPR-A, a remote, Indiana-sized tract of western North Slope land former President Warren G. Harding set aside in 1923 for its oil and gas potential.
Editor’s note: Watch for full stories in the Sept. 6 edition of Petroleum News, which will be available online Sept. 4, at noon Alaska-time, at www.petroleumnews.com