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Conoco to develop West Alpine Company applies for pad, road, Nigliq Channel crossing; CD-5 in NPR-A Kristen Nelson Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief
ConocoPhillips Alaska has filed applications to begin development work on a third Alpine satellite, West Alpine, changing the sequence of development for the satellites.
Alpine West, on section 8, township 11 north, range 4 east, Umiat Meridian — Kuukpik Corp. surface land some six miles west/southwest of the Alpine Central Processing Facility — will be CD-5. The main pad at the Alpine field in the Colville River unit is CD-1. Production began there in November 2000 and from the nearby CD-2 in November 2001.
ConocoPhillips and its partner Anadarko Petroleum put gravel down and began development drilling earlier this year at the first two Alpine satellites, Fiord and Nanuq, drill sites CD-3 and CD-4, north and south of the Alpine main facilities.
CD-5 is in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, on subsurface transferred to the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. The area to be developed includes acreage leased by ConocoPhillips and Anadarko from ASRC, the State of Alaska and the Bureau of Land Management. ConocoPhillips said ASRC has the majority of subsurface ownership at Alpine West, with a minor portion owned by the state and BLM. A schedule change The West Alpine pad location is across the Nigliq Channel from the main Alpine facilities and the project includes a 1,200-foot vehicle and pipeline bridge crossing the channel. There will also be an 80-foot vehicle bridge across a paleo-channel west of Nigliq and a 4.2-mile gravel access road from CD-2 to CD-5.
In the plan set out when the environmental impact statement was done for the five-satellite development at Alpine, CD-5 was to have been developed in the same timeframe as CD-7, the Spark discovery in NPR-A, with construction in the winter of 2009 and drilling in the winter of 2010.
CD-6, the Lookout discovery in NPR-A, was to have been developed in the 2007-08 timeframe and the Nigliq Channel crossing was to have been done in 2007-08 in conjunction with the work at CD-6.
ConocoPhillips told agencies in its CD-5 application that permit applications for CD-6 and CD-7 “will be revised and resubmitted in the future once additional planning work is completed on those two projects.” Long-lead ordering in 2006 ConocoPhillips said CD-5 project work would begin in the first quarter of 2006 with the ordering of long-lead materials for the bridge over the Nigliq Channel. Gravel would be laid for the road and pad and bridge piers installed for the Nigliq Channel crossing in the winter of 2007, with gravel work and laying of the bridge deck in the summer of 2007.
Vertical support members and pipelines would be installed in the winter of 2008. Construction of on-pad facilities would be done in the second and third quarters of 2008, with first drilling in the second quarter of 2008 and production in the fourth quarter of 2008.
ConocoPhillips said there will be no permanent camp at CD-5. Construction crews will be housed at the Alpine base camp or at a temporary camp on the drill site or on an ice pad. An additional 100-man camp could be added to the Alpine base camp for additional bed space during peak construction activities.
A temporary camp will be used at CD-5 during drilling, expected to begin in the second quarter of 2008 and continue until all planned wells are completed, estimated at 12-16 months.
Electric power for CD-5 operations will come from the existing Alpine power system and power and communications lines to the new drill site will be on the pipeline vertical support members. Pipelines will include a 10-inch seawater pipeline, an 18-inch production pipeline, an eight-inch miscible injectant pipeline and a six-inch lean gas pipeline, with lean gas coming from CD-1 to CD-5 for artificial lift. The drilling rig will be initially powered by low-sulfur diesel fuel until the power cables are installed.
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