AOGCC OKs Hilcorp gas pool expansion

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has approved an expansion of the areal and vertical extents of the Happy Valley Beluga/Tyonek gas pool at Hilcorp Alaska’s Deep Creek unit on the Kenai Peninsula.

The commission said in its April 11 order that the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and Cook Inlet Region Inc. are the landowners and jointly manage the unit.

Union Oil Company of California, the previous Deep Creek operator, drilled the discovery well in 2003 and, having determined the accumulation was commercial, constructed a 15-mile pipeline and installed gas production facilities at the Happy Valley A pad. Regular production began in 2004. Between 2007 and 2008 Unocal added the B pad.

Hilcorp became owner and operator at Deep Creek in January 2012 and has drilled four additional wells from the B pad and acquired 3-D seismic.

The Beluga/Tyonek gas pool was previously defined at the interval between measured depths of 2,997 feet and 10,046 feet in the Superior Happy Valley No. 31-22 exploration well.

Hilcorp requested, and the commission agreed, to expand the vertical limit of the pool upward to a measured depth of 2,246 feet in the same well and to modify the affected area of the commission’s pool rules to bring the Happy Valley Beluga/Tyonek gas pool into alignment with the Happy Valley participating area.

The commission said the order expires five years after the April 11 effective date or upon a change in operator.

- KRISTEN NELSON