|
Reduced Colville River drilling in 2020
ConocoPhillips drilled only 6 of 21 planned CRU wells last year due to COVID shutdown; proposed pad CD8 won’t produce until 2028 Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
ConocoPhillips Alaska’s annual status update for the Colville River unit plan, submitted to state, federal and Arctic Slope Regional Corp. officials March 16, is a stark reminder of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of 21 wells planned for the CRU in 2020, which would have been drilled by multiple rigs including Doyon 26, the new extended reach drilling rig, only six were drilled prior to the company’s suspension of all drilling operations in April 2020.
While drilling operations resumed in December, only up to seven wells are planned at CRU during 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, the company said.
On the facilities side, the new pad proposed for the unit’s fifth expansion area, CD8, targeting the Narwhal reservoir, will continue to be evaluated, but sustained production from CD8, which the company said last year could be as early as 2025, has been rolled back by three years and is now targeted for as early as 2028.
Drilling to date ConocoPhillips broke out the wells completed to date in the various pools, excluding sidetracks and redrills.
The Alpine pool, Alpine participating area, has 157 wells (83 producers, 72 injectors and two disposal wells) and 13 in the Nanuq Kuparuk PA, six producers and seven injectors.
The Fiord pool, recently combined with Alpine by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, but listed here separately for convenience, has six Fiord Kuparuk PA wells, three producers and three injectors, and 23 Fiord Nechelik PA wells, 13 producers and 10 injectors.
In the Nanuq PA at the Nanuq pool there are 10 wells, six producers and four injectors and at the Qannik pool, the Qannik PA has nine wells, six producers and three injectors.
The majority of CRU production is from the Alpine pool, an average of 38,000 barrels per day in 2020, ConocoPhillips said. Fiord produced an average of 4,800 bpd, Nanuq average 900 bpd and Qannik averaged 1,500 bpd, for a unit average of 45,200 bpd in 2020.
In 2020 two wells, CD5-96, a multilateral Alpine producer, and CD5-23A, a coiled tubing drilling multilateral injector, were drilled in the Alpine PA; no wells were drilled in the Nanuq Kuparuk PA at the Alpine pool.
No wells were drilled in either the Fiord pool Kuparuk PA or the Fiord Nechelik PA in 2020.
In the Nanuq PA two wells were drilled in 2020: CD4-214L1, a CTD lateral injector and CD4-215L1, a CTD lateral producer.
In the Qannik PA a single well, CD4-499, a producer, was drilled last year, and in the Fiord West Kuparuk PA a single well, Rhea-1, a slant Fiord West Kuparuk pilot well, was drilled.
ConocoPhillips said CD4-499, drilled in late 2019 and early 2020, represents a step-out from existing development “away from existing well control, and will help better characterize the eastern portion of the reservoir.”
Locations of this year’s proposed wells was not included in the public version of the report, although ConocoPhillips did say that at the Alpine pool, CRU’s largest, up to three injectors will be drilled starting in the fourth quarter of 2020 and continuing through the second quarter of 2021.
ConocoPhillips said all participating areas at the CRU are primarily developed with horizontal well technology, with Qannik and Nanuq primarily waterflooded while Alpine, Fiord Nechelik, Fiord Kuparuk and Nanuq Kuparuk primarily employ MWAG for enhanced oil recovery. In this unit plan, “MWAG refers to a gas-alternating-water flood using either a miscible gas or sub-miscible enriched gas” the company said.
Exploration ConocoPhillips has been drilling in the fifth expansion area at the CRU, and said two recent wells, CD4-594 and CD4-595 “have stretched the limits of drilling extended reach, serviceable wells at shallow depths, and have confirmed that a new pad will be required to reach the full extent of the Narwhal resource in the 5th Expansion Area,” a pad currently referred to as CD8. The company said studies to determine the location of CD8 have begun.
The fifth expansion area is on the southeastern edge of the unit, south of and adjacent to Oil Search’s Pikka unit and other Oil Search acreage. This is the area where ConocoPhillips drilled the Putu 2 and Putu 2A wells in completing its 2018 and 2020 well commitments for the fifth expansion area.
Although not required by the Department of Natural Resources decision approving the expansion, ConocoPhillips said it drilled the CD4-595PH1, CD4-595, CD4-594PH1 and CD4-594 2018 and 2018 appraisal wells “to better understand the reservoir and to test the technical feasibility of extended reach drilling at shallow depth.”
ConocoPhillips said it re-entered the CD4-595 well in April 2019 to finish drilling of the lateral section. The horizontal well is highly deviated, and LWD, logging while drilling, data was acquired only in the lateral section.
“The horizontal was completed and fracture stimulated prior to execution of an extended production test through the CD4 facilities,” the company said, and was shut-in early in August 2019 following the production test “to enable monitoring of pressure build-up via permanent downhole gauges.”
Both the CD4-594PH1 pilot hole and the CD4-594 horizontal injector were drilled in the fourth quarter of 2019. The company said “both are Brookian Nanushuk sand (Narwhal) wells. The pilot hole was drilled from the CD4 pad to TD in the Brookian Nanushuk sand, and was evaluated, then plugged back in order to enable open-hole kickoff of the CD4-594 well.”
ConocoPhillips said the CD4-594 horizontal is intended as an injector to be paired with the CD4-595 horizontal producer.
CD4-594 was brought on injection in the first quarter of 2020 “as part of an injection interference test covered under a plot injection order approved by the AOGCC in late Q4 2019” and the company said it injected water into the CD4-594 and monitored pressures in CD4-595 “to better evaluate reservoir connectivity.”
Further production and injection testing was done in the fourth quarter 2020 “by simultaneous injection and production in the CD4-594 and CD4-595 horizontals.”
Both wells were shut-in last November following testing “to enable monitoring of bottom hole pressures via permanent downhole gauges.”
ConocoPhillips said it plans to drill a second injector west of CD4-595 in the first quarter of 2022, “so that a fully supported producer/injector pattern can be tested long term.”
Long-range fifth expansion plan ConocoPhillips said the current design basis for the CD8 pad is a gravel pad connected back to CD4, with production and injection piping to the Alpine Central Facility.
Studies of potential pad locations and alternate road routs were begun in 2019 and are ongoing, with additional facility engineering studies which may begin in late 2021 “to identify a single development concept for approval.”
The company said the intent of the CD8 study “is to progress the design and location options with the goal of arriving at a robust single development concept after appropriate engagement with interested stakeholders,” including the Arctic Slope Regional Corp., Kuukpik Corp., the City of Nuiqsut, the Native Village of Nuiqsut, the federal Bureau of Land Management, the State of Alaska and the North Slope Borough.
ConocoPhillips said it has licensed data from the 2020 Narwhal 3D seismic survey which is being processed to better understand the extent of the reservoir in the fifth expansion area.
Current thinking, the company said, calls for 20 to 40 wells from CD8 to fully develop the area “dependent upon ongoing reservoir studies and learnings from 2020-2022 Narwhal pilot production to determine final spacing.”
On the 2028 date for sustained production, the company said: “Note this conceptual first oil date has been deferred by three years from that described in the 2020 CRU POD Update in response to the COVID-19 pandemic inspired downturn experienced in 2020 and resulting changing in business plans.”
In addition to Narwhal development in the fifth expansion area, there are plans for up to five additional wells from slots at CD4 and potential expansion of that pad to accommodate drilling both Narwhal and Qannik targets.
Also targets to west While CD8 would develop CRU farther to the southeast, there are also opportunities on the west, the company said.
Construction at CRU’s newest pad, CD5 on the western edge, was completed - and production began - in 2015.
“Drilling results from each CD5 well supported the next westward target,” the company said, and with the latest well, CD5-316, “results suggest another target exists to the west,” and while it cannot be reached with Doyon 25, “with the arrival of the extended reach drilling (ERD) rig expected in 2021 it is accessible,” and is a future possibility “depending on drilling performance and project competitiveness.”
Doyon 26, the new ERD rig, is expected to begin drilling in the second quarter, the company said.
In the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, drilling is complete at Greater Moose’s Tooth Unit No. 1, the Lookout oil pool, with production through the Alpine Central Facility.
Drilling at Greater Mooses Tooth unit No. 2, the Rendezvous reservoir, is planned to begin in the second quarter of the year, with first oil expected in the fourth quarter.
Facilities expansion In addition to planning for the CD8 pad, the company has other facilities expansions underway or in the planning stage.
Construction activities began in February of 2020 for the Alpine Gas Expansion project which will debottleneck gas handling capacity at the Alpine Central Facility, increasing gas capacity by some 30 million standard cubic feet per day, depending on the season, resulting in annual average gas throughput capacity of 180 million to 220 million standard cubic feet, as well as addressing other facility gas handling bottlenecks associated with the increase in gas throughput.
Funding was approved for the Alpine Power Expansion in 2020 with detailed engineering and design completed. The power expansion will add infrastructure to the ACF to meet future power demand. Construction began in 2020 and the targeted startup date is the third quarter of this year.
Funding was also approved in 2020 for the Alpine Slug Catcher project, with detailed engineering and design completed for the project which will “add system surge capacity by installing a large three phase slug catcher vessel upstream of the plant to absorb liquid slugs and maintain optimized flow of oil and water to the inlet separator,” adding some 1,400 barrels of system surge capacity. ConocoPhillips said the new vessel was fabricated last year, barged to Oliktok Point in August and will be transported across the sea ice in the first quarter of this year, followed by construction at ACF with a target startup in the third quarter.
An engineering and design study and permit applications for the next CD4 drillsite expansion will continue this year, with the proposed expansion “targeting the Narwhal reservoir, and potentially additional Qannik targets,” the company said.
| 