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Waiting game for North Slope explorers BRPC and UltraStar continue to wait before finalizing plans, four other companies progressing through preliminary work Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
As the year comes to a close, several small independents have yet to finalize their exploration plans for the winter while larger players advance on preliminary work.
Depending on how those plans shake out, this season could feature between four and six companies drilling between nine and 23 exploration wells across the North Slope.
Alphabetically, the six are Brooks Range Petroleum Corp., ConocoPhillips, Linc Energy Inc., Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska Inc., Repsol and UltraStar Exploration LLC.
While ConocoPhillips, Linc, Pioneer and Repsol have advanced to the permitting stage for their work, BRPC and UltraStar are waiting on final details before moving forward.
BRPC facing logistics Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. is still pursuing as many as five wells and sidetracks at its Tofkat and Kachemach prospects this winter, but has yet to finalize work at either field.
BRPC hopes to drill an exploration well and as many as two sidetracks this winter at its Tofkat unit. Because the unit sits along a bend in the Colville River, the company needs to secure an appropriate rig and finalize the logistics of getting it across a channel of the river before it can move ahead. BRPC “continues to progress these and other issues that are critical to the execution of the Tofkat No. 2 drilling for this upcoming season,” BRPC Chief Operating Officer Bart Armfield told Petroleum News by e-mail on Dec. 10.
In early 2008, BRPC drilled the Tofkat No. 1 well and two sidetracks. The well collected 10 oil samples from four sandstone reservoirs and found six feet of net pay in the Kuparuk formation, the deepest zone tested. The Tofkat No. 2 well would “test Brookian 3D anomalies, confirm the size of our Kuparuk discovery and test the deeper Jurassic offsetting two high flow rate Jurassic wells in ConocoPhillips’ Nanuq field area.”
BRPC is also still maintaining plans to drill as many as two wells at the Kachemach unit, just east of Tofkat, but the program “remains under consideration within the (Department of Natural Resources), and we are not at liberty to speculate as to the response that may come from the decision issued by the DNR,” Armfield told Petroleum News.
As it pursue its two exploration ventures, BRPC is putting the final agreement together on its plans to develop the Mustang field in the Southern Miluveach unit. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority recently agreed to finance a gravel road and pad at the unit, located at the southwestern corner of the Kuparuk River unit.
The mining, construction and conditioning will run from early 2013 through early 2014.
Cassin for Conoco ConocoPhillips recently applied for a permit to drill in the federal Bear Tooth unit.
The company is asking for permission to drill the Cassin No. 1 well in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska unit, according to U.S. Bureau of Land Management filings.
Cassin No. 1 would be on lease AA081754, in the middle of the unit. The lease is included in Unit Area A, a subset of the unit designated for initial work commitments.
Earlier this year, ConocoPhillips staked nine potential well locations in the NPR-A, two in its Mooses Tooth unit and seven in the Bear Tooth unit (five wells and two sidetracks).
The company must drill by June 1, 2013, to meet its work commitments.
Petroleum News previously reported that ConocoPhillips had also applied to drill the Cassin No. 6 well in the unit, but the BLM has yet to publish an application notice.
Snow road for Linc Linc Energy is nearly done building a 100-mile snow road to its Umiat field.
With the road complete, the Australian independent will begin mobilizing crews and equipment for its five-well program at the oil field in the Brooks Range Foothills.
Using the Kuukpik No. 5 rig, Linc plans to drill the side-by-side Umiat No. 16 and Umiat No. 16H wells, the Umiat 23 well and “one or both” of the Umiat No. 18 and Umiat No. 19 wells. The program will begin with the Umiat DS No. 1, Class II disposal well.
Nuna permit for Pioneer The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission issued a permit on Dec. 4 for Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska to drill Oooguruk NDST-02, also known as Nuna No. 2.
Like the NDST-1 or Nuna No. 1 exploration well that Pioneer drilled this past winter, NDST-2 will be a directional well starting from an onshore ice pad at the Kuparuk River unit and continue to an offshore bottom-hole location on Pioneer lease ADL 355038.
Pioneer is using the well to collect additional information about the Torok reservoir at its near shore unit. The company plans to hydraulically fracture and flow test NDST-2.
Four locations for Repsol Repsol E&P USA Inc. is permitting four locations in the fairway between the Oooguruk and Colville River units: Qugruk No. 1, No. 3 and No. 6, and the alternate Qugruk No. 5.
The program calls for using three rigs to drill a vertical well and as many as two sidetracks at three locations. The Spanish major permitted Qugruk No. 1 and Qugruk No. 3 in 2011. Qugruk No. 6 is a new well at the location where Repsol began drilling the Qugruk No. 2 well last winter, before a shallow gas kick compromised operations.
Repsol plans to use Nabors rig 105AC at Qugruk No. 1, Nabors rig 99 at Qugruk No. 3 and Nabors rig 9ES at either Qugruk No. 6 or at the alternate Qugruk No. 5 location.
UltraStar still waiting UltraStar continues to wait on the financial backing for its wells this winter.
Earlier this summer, UltraStar executive Jim Weeks was optimistic the Alaska-based independent would be able to drill the North Dewline No. 1 well in the first quarter of 2013, but as of early October Weeks said the company still needed half the money.
On Dec. 12, Weeks told Petroleum News, “We’re about in the same place.”
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