Placer No. 2 tract operations approved

ConocoPhillips Alaska says second well this winter at west Kuparuk prospect could expedite development, cutting one year off timetable

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief

In mid-March the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas approved a request for tract operations to drill the Placer No. 2 exploration well in a western Kuparuk River unit expansion area southwest of the Palm discovery and development.

Tract operations were approved for the Placer No. 1 well in January, and Rick Mott, ConocoPhillips Alaska’s vice president of exploration and land, told Petroleum News March 4 that “we’ve already run the surface casing, we’re down below 3,000 feet.”

The company already received a drilling permit for the second well, and Mott said that was “a contingency.”

If results at the first well were encouraging, “we would try and go for a second well,” he said. That could allow the company to expedite development if results were commercial.

“We could cut a whole year off the cycle time by doing that,” he said.

Development of the Kuparuk River unit Palm discovery northeast of Placer, announced in May 2001, took less than 20 months from the time the discovery well was spud to first production, and that discovery also saw two penetrations drilled in the same winter season, in that case a well and a sidetrack. Construction work on the pad at Palm, Kuparuk River unit drill site 3S, began in late January 2002, development drilling began that November, and the field came on line Nov. 14, 2002, with initial production of 29,000 barrels of oil per day.

The tract work approved by the Division of Oil and Gas at Placer No. 2 was “to drill and test the well and commingle the test fluids with the other KPA (Kuparuk participating area) production.” The company told the division that the target is the Kuparuk C sand at a vertical depth of 6,060 feet. Drilling was expected to begin “on or about” March 18. The Kuparuk C sand was also the objective of the Placer No. 1 well. ConocoPhillips told the division there was no secondary objective at the well, “although the Jurassic Alpine C interval will be penetrated” at approximately 6,545 feet true vertical depth.

If the Placer No. 2 is tested that would be done in the first or second quarters, “depending on equipment availability,” ConocoPhillips told the division. If there were test production, the crude oil would be given to the Kuparuk River unit owners “in lieu of payment for use of the facility.” Working interest owners at Placer are: ConocoPhillips Alaska (55.29 percent); Arctic Slope Regional Corp. (35.35 percent); Unocal (8.88 percent); ExxonMobil Alaska Production (0.36 percent); and Chevron (0.11 percent).