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Conoco won’t drill 2nd Iapetus well
Colville River unit operator ConocoPhillips Alaska has told the state it won’t drill a second well at the Iapetus prospect at the northwest corner of the unit.
ConocoPhillips applied to expand the unit to the west last year to extend leases with Jan. 31, 2004, expiration dates. The company wanted to drill a prospect, Iapetus, on the western edge of state acreage on Alaska’s North Slope.
The state requested that the proposed expansion area, some 34,176 acres (16,578 belonging to Arctic Slope Regional Corp., 15,681 acres to the state and 1,920 acres jointly held by ASRC and the state) be divided into two areas, “A” being the portion adjacent to the existing Colville River unit and “B” the portion farther to the west; a well was required in each area, the first in 2005 and the second in 2006.
Rick Mott, ConocoPhillips Alaska vice president exploration and land, told Petroleum News in January that Iapetus is on state and Native lands due west of the Fiord development and could “be a new discovery out there, or an extension of Fiord.” He said Iapetus would be drilled from an ice pad at the shoreline, “but the prospect straddles the onshore and offshore.” First Iapetus well drilled The first well was drilled this winter in area “A.”
State records show the well was drilled from a surface in section 8, township 12 north, range 4 east, Umiat Meridian, to a bottomhole in section 7, township 12 north, range 4 east, UM. This well, drilled into the “B” segment farther west, was plugged and abandoned March 28. It reached a measured depth of 9,300 feet and a true vertical depth of 7,986 feet.
No further information is available on the well, but ConocoPhillips must not have liked what it saw, because it opted to drop the acreage to the west, rather than committing to drill the second well in area “B” next year.
In late May ConocoPhillips informed the state that the working interested owners had elected not to drill in area B; area B contracted out of the Colville River unit effective June 1 and the leases expired.
In addition to the drilling requirement, the expansion area lands must be in an approved participating area within five years of the expansion approval (April 22, 2004) or they will be dropped from the unit.
—Kristen Nelson
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