Whiskey Gulch gas coming

Hilcorp applies to install production infrastructure at Kenai Peninsula pad

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Hilcorp Alaska is planning to bring new gas into production on the lower Kenai Peninsula.

The company has applied to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas to install gas production infrastructure on its existing Whiskey Gulch Pad near Anchor Point, north of the company's Seaview unit.

The division said in a public notice posted April 28 that it received the lease plan of operations application April 9 and is taking public comments through May 28.

In its application Hilcorp said it would "install subsurface piping and new infrastructure to produce gas to sales from the existing well(s) at Whiskey Gulch" with activities to occur on the existing pad.

Hilcorp said work at the existing Whiskey Gulch pad would begin in mid-May, subject to permit approval, and run through the end of July.

This is Hilcorp's second attempt to produce gas from the lower Kenai Peninsula. It brought the Seaview unit online in June 2021, but production from that gas field ceased after August 2022.

At one point Hilcorp had considered expanding the Seaview unit to include Whiskey Gulch, but later said it was abandoning that plan.

Exploration work

Hilcorp began exploration work at Whiskey Gulch in 2019 and 2020 with a dozen stratigraphic test wells, progressing to exploration wells in 2021.

The existing 2.75-acre gravel Whiskey Gulch pad was constructed in 2021 to support the exploration wells. It is on private surface land at the end of Cape Ninilchik Avenue, about 1 mile east of the Sterling Highway. Hilcorp said when applying for approval for that work that the pad, 300-feet by 400-feet, was being permitted "on partially improved private lands" with access from existing Kenai Peninsula Borough roadways to the intersection of Cape Ninilchik Avenue and Opportunity Lane, with access roadway improvements to be over an existing driveway at the intersection extending west to the pad.

The Whiskey Gulch 1 and Whiskey Gulch 14 wells were drilled from the pad.

A map accompanying the application shows three wells on the pad.

Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission records show Whiskey Gulch 1 was completed in 2021 and Whiskey Gulch 14 in 2022. Whiskey Gulch 15, also shown on the map, shows on AOGCC records as having been permitted but the lack of spud and completion dates indicates the well has not yet been drilled.

Whiskey Gulch 1 had a measured depth of 10,271 feet and a true vertical depth of 9,331 feet; Whiskey Gulch 14 had a MD of 8,013 feet and a TVD of 7,261 feet; detailed results of the wells remain confidential.

AOGCC lists both as single completion gas wells and shows the pool as Whiskey Gulch undefined gas. Whiskey Gulch 1 was drilled to a target southwest of the pad; Whiskey Gulch had a target northeast of the pad.

Hilcorp told the commission in a spacing exception application for Whiskey 14 that it was targeting the Sterling, Beluga and Tyonek formations within Whiskey Gulch undefined oil and gas pools, and said results from the Whiskey Gulch 1 well and data from surrounding fields "suggests that the Whiskey Gulch Undefined Gas Pool consists of a series of thin, discontinuous, stacked channel sands with a low net-to-gross ratio."

Pad work this summer

Installation work includes:

*An enclosed separator package;

*A 200-barrel produced water tank;

*An enclosed compressor package;

*An enclosed glycol dehydration package;

*A control building;

*A utility building;

*Piping, valves and associated structural supports; and

*Heat trace, instrumentation cables, electrical cables, instrument air and fuel gas lines.