Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline spurs drilling, staking along route

Gary Park Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

One of the liveliest winter drilling seasons in years is winding down in the Northwest Territories, although results remain scant for competitive reasons.

Spurred by the need to make commercial natural gas discoveries in anticipation of an 800-mile Mackenzie Valley pipeline, operators were especially active in the lower NWT. With hopes high that the project will start deliveries by 2008, companies have been actively staking out interests along the pipeline route.

On the Mackenzie Delta, there is no news yet from three wells: the Nuna I-30 exploration well being drilled by Petro-Canada and Devon Canada that is expected to reach a depth of 11,800 feet; a 6,500-foot well by Devon and Shell Canada, and Langley K-30, a 4,600-foot exploration well that is being drilled by Chevron Canada and BP Canada Energy on Burlington Resources Canada Energy land 75 miles northwest of Inuvik following a three-dimensional seismic program shot last year.

EnCana also completed seismic work last month in the Delta/Beaufort Sea area.

NWT drilling programs

• Nine wells completed by Anadarko Canada despite a late freeze-up, with seven drilled in the Arrowhead River area northeast of Fort Liard and close to where Anadarko drilled an exploration well last year.

The National Energy Board has authorized another three wells, but Anadarko has yet to decide whether they will be drilled next winter.

• Paramount Resources has rig-released 10 wells, nine of them at Cameron Hills, just north of the Alberta border. The last two were released on April 6 and 8.The 10th well was an exploration hole east of Fort Liard.

The company said that as a result of three-dimensional seismic shot last year, it is targeting deep Devonian plays. Paramount’s average production from the northeast British Columbia-NWT core area increased by 32 percent last year.

• A partnership of Chevron Canada Resources and Purcell Energy rig-released a C$6 million delineation well after reaching a depth of about 11,800 feet.

Purcell is hopeful production from the well will be as much as 40 million cubic feet per day, resulting in a boost to current Liard reserves of 750 billion cubic feet.

• Canadian Natural Resources drilled two shallow-gas exploration wells at Colville Lake north of Norman Wells in the Central Mackenzie Valley region, while Paramount and Apache Canada have completed an exploratory well in the same area.

• Partners Devlan Exploration and Vintage Petroleum completed and tested three exploration gas wells in the Grandview Hills area of the Central Mackenzie Valley, returning to an area that Devlan first drilled two years ago. Devlan also completed a new exploration well about five miles from a well that was drilled and cased two years ago.

• Canadian Forest Oil and its partners plan to drill and test a well about five miles southwest of Fort Liard. They are targeting a depth of about 15,600 feet.