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State expands Conoco’s Colville River unit Adding single federal lease would support proposed Fiord West development; first project for new expanded reach drilling rig Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
The state has approved the seventh expansion of the Colville River unit.
In a June 14 decision, Division of Oil and Gas Director Chantal Walsh agreed to a request from ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. to add approximately 240 acres to the unit.
The expansion adds a single federal lease - AA 84140. The lease is located toward the northern end of the unit, along the Colville River, but within the existing unit area. The expansion would support the Fiord West development, in the northwest of the unit.
ConocoPhillips plans to drill “through or near” the expansion acreage using extended reach drilling from the existing CD-2 pad. The company has commissioned a rig for the program and expects the rig to be delivered before the end of the 2020 ice road season.
As with the entire unit, ConocoPhillips operates the lease and owns 88 percent working interest. Anadarko E&P Offshore LLC owns the remaining 22 percent working interest.
The expansion acreage is in the Fiord West development area, one mile west of the current Fiord Nechelik participating area. Earlier this year, ConocoPhillips Alaska President Joe Marushack described the Fiord West project as most likely the first program on the schedule in a decade-long work list for a new extended reach rig.
Geology According to the decision, seven previous exploration wells surround the expansion acreage: Nechelik No. 1, Temptation No. 1, Temptation No. 1A, Nigliq No. 1, Nigliq No. 1A, Iapetus No. 2 and Char No. 1. All seven wells encountered either the Lower Cretaceous Kuparuk River formation, Upper Jurassic Nechelik sandstone or both, according to the decision. Sohio drilled the Sohio Nechelik No. 1 well in 1982, ARCO drilled the Temptation No. 1 and Temptation No. 1A well and sidetrack in 1996, and Phillips drilled the Nigliq No. 1 and Nigliq No. 1A well and sidetrack in 2001.
ConocoPhillips drilled the Iapetus No. 2 well in 2005. The company drilled the Char No. 1 well in 2008. The well produced 3,620 barrels of oil per day in a subsequent test.
The state formed the Fiord Nechelik participating area in 2006. ConocoPhillips subsequently drilled 13 production wells and 10 injection wells at the participating area, producing some 13.4 million barrels of oil through the beginning of this year, according to the state. “Well data from the Fiord Nechelik (participating area) and the seven exploration wells described in this decision indicate that the Nechelik sandstone trend continues west toward the seventh expansion area,” Walsh wrote in her decision.
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