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ConocoPhillips applies for Cronus unit near Meltwater Exploration well targets Albian Torok sand interval at prospect southwest of Kuparuk River unit Kristen Nelson Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief
ConocoPhillips Alaska will drill an exploration well west of Meltwater this winter, according to a unit application filed with the state in late July.
ConocoPhillips applied to the State of Alaska to form the Cronus exploration unit immediately west of Meltwater on the North Slope. Meltwater is a non-continuous portion of the Kuparuk River unit, southwest of Tabasco.
In exchange for formation of the two-lease exploration unit, ConocoPhillips would drill a well at the prospect this winter. One of the leases was acquired in state North Slope sale 87 and expires Oct. 31. The other was acquired in the 1999 areawide North Slope lease sale and expires June 30.
The company’s plan of exploration calls for an initial test well within the boundaries of the proposed Cronus unit by June 1, 2006. It would be a vertical well on state oil and gas lease ADL 389161, in township 8 north range 6 east, Umiat Meridian, and would be drilled to depths sufficient to penetrate the Albian Torok sand interval correlative to that found in the Nanuk No. 1 well between 6,140 feet to 6,300 feet measured depth, or 6,100 feet to 6,300 feet subsea true vertical depth, whichever is lesser, the company said in its July 27 application to the Department of Natural Resources. That well was drilled in section 19, T11N-R5E, UM, and the accumulation is being developed as an Alpine satellite (see most recent Nanuq story in Aug. 21 issue of Petroleum News), with production planned to begin at the end of 2006 from both Nanuq and Kuparuk sands. Earlier well planned at prospect ConocoPhillips told the state that the Cronus unit “encompasses all or part of a potentially oil-bearing reservoir in the Albian Torok formation” and said the proposed unit consists of all of the acreage in ADL 389161 and ADL 389056. Geological, geophysical, engineering and well information submitted as part of the application is confidential.
ConocoPhillips has asked for a three-year term for the plan of exploration.
If the well at Cronus is not drilled, the unit would terminate and leases beyond their term would expire.
A participating area would be required within five years of approval of the Cronus unit.
ConocoPhillips filed to drill a well at Cronus in 2002, reactivating a 2001 permit application. That well was proposed for section 4 of T8N-R6E, UM. Cronus was one of a group of exploration prospects ConocoPhillips was looking at west of Kuparuk early in the decade.
The Cronus prospect was originally part of the larger SE Delta exploration unit approved by the state in 2001. Phillips drilled the Atlas prospect in SE Delta in section 11-T9N-R6E, UM, to a measured depth of 7,335 feet and a TVD of 7,278 feet. That well was plugged and abandoned, as was an Atlas sidetrack.
Work to maintain the SE Delta unit included a commitment by ConocoPhillips to drill the Cronus well by June 1, 2002.
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