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Badami shuts down oil production
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
Editor’s Note: The following bulletin was emailed to all Petroleum News subscribers on May 1 but was inadvertently omitted from the next weekly issue of the newspaper.
Oil production from the eastern North Slope Badami unit is being shut-in, likely due to the low price of Alaska crude, although field operator, Savant Alaska, a Glacier Oil and Gas Co., has not yet made a formal statement confirming the well suspensions.
In response to a May 1 query from Petroleum News, Tom Stokes, director of the state Division of Oil and Gas, confirmed that he had been told by Glacier’s president that the field would be put in warm storage, meaning the facilities will be maintained for an eventual restart.
Petroleum News also confirmed that Savant’s common carrier Nutaaq pipeline, which serves the Point Thomson unit, will stay in operation.
According to Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission records, Badami averaged 1,252 barrels of oil per day in March, down 7.7%, 105 bpd, from a February average of 1,357 bpd and down 31.1% from a March 2019 average of 1,817 bpd.
Seven wells in the Badami sands participating area produced 716 barrels in March; with the other 804 bpd coming from an “undefined pool.” B1-11A was the highest Badami sands producer at 320 bpd.
Two wells were listed as producing from the undefined pool, B1-07 at 664 bpd and B1-38 at 140 bpd.
Badami produced 173 barrels of water in March.
First Badami Killian well B1-38
The first Badami-related Killian oil discovery, which is on leases outside the Badami sands PA, was made in the B1-38 exploration well at a depth of 15,245 feet in 2010 by Savant before it was purchased by Miller Energy (which emerged from bankruptcy as Glacier), in the East Mikkelsen prospect (later renamed Starfish by Glacier) between Badami and the Point Thomson unit.
The Cretaceous Killian interval, a turbidite sandstone reservoir immediately above the oil source rock and below the Badami sands that form the main reservoir for the Badami oil field, was a well-known horizon in the area and within the Badami unit and originally penetrated by Humble Oil (predecessor to ExxonMobil) in the East Mikkelsen Bay No. 1 well in 1971.
Savant under the ownership of Glacier brought its second Killian well, B1-07, into production in 2018.
In early testing B1-07 produced 2,500 barrels per day, tapering off to 1,600 bpd by January 2019.
Describing the Starfish prospect prior to drilling, a Glacier official said, “If this well works close to what we think it will, it should open five to seven more prospects similar to it.”
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