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Gravel haul, bridge work for CD-5 in ’14 This winter will be first of 2 construction seasons for new pad; ConocoPhillips has temporary camps, pre-staged equipment in place Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Work on ConocoPhillips Alaska’s fifth Colville River unit drill site, CD-5, will get under way this winter, with gravel haul and bridge construction.
CD-5, sanctioned last year, is a single-pad development west of Alpine in the Colville River unit.
In an early-November email, ConocoPhillips Alaska spokeswoman Natalie Loman told Petroleum News the new production drill site will be approximately 6 miles west of the existing Alpine field.
While the CD-5 pad is technically within the boundaries of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, it is on Native land, so it will not be the first production from NPR-A, a distinction which would go to the Greater Mooses Tooth unit, for which a supplemental environmental impact statement is under way.
Loman said access to the CD-5 pad will be via a gravel road starting at the existing Alpine field road system and includes four bridges across channels of the Colville River, with flow lines transporting production to Alpine for processing.
She said the project “is on schedule and on budget.”
Additional infrastructure required at the Alpine Central Facility includes a 20-inch line from CD-5 to Alpine along with power and communication, two process modules and a pipe rack.
Two construction seasons CD-5 will be built over two construction seasons, with ice roads, gravel haul and bridge construction in 2014. The 2015 construction season will include ice roads, the Nigliq bridge, pipelines, power and facilities at the CD-5 drill site.
Ice roads will support bridge construction, including the 12-mile access road from the Alpine Central Facility, and ice pads.
Loman said long lead time materials have been purchased and temporary camps and pre-staged equipment are in place, while bridge fabrication is nearing completion.
Drill site facilities will include the 10.7-acre pad, eight process modules, 12 pipe rack modules and 15 wells — seven production and eight injection.
Loman said facilities design continues, but drilling is scheduled to begin in May, 2015, with the rig moving to CD-5 on an ice road, and startup scheduled for December 2015.
Long time coming This satellite — along with others farther west in NPR-A — have been in discussion since discoveries in NPR-A in the mid 1990s. In 2003, ConocoPhillips discussed the possibility of as many a 10 satellites within 30 miles of Alpine, which was discovered in 1994 and brought online in 2000.
Two pads at Alpine satellites — Fiord and Nanuq — have been built, with production coming online at both CD-3 and CD-4 in 2006.
CD-5, Alpine West, was in the application stage prior to that, but regulatory and legal complications produced delays.
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