Winstar Petroleum applies for expansion of Kuparuk River unit

Exploration well on lease adjacent to unit, northeast of Oliktok Point, will be drilled for Winstar by unit operator ConocoPhillips

Kristen Nelson

PNA Editor-in-Chief

Winstar Petroleum LLC has applied to the state to have the Kuparuk River unit expanded to include Winstar’s 1,280-acre lease northeast of Oliktok Point. Winstar will drill an exploration well on the lease later this year from the Kuparuk River unit 3-R pad. That well will be operated by field operator ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc.

Jim Weeks, president of Winstar, told the state in a Jan. 14 application that the company “sees potential Kuparuk reserves under its lease and intends to drill exploration well(s) to demonstrate this potential.” Weeks said that ConocoPhillips Alaska “agrees to support this operation on condition that an expansion of the KRU to include ADL388584 is in hand.”

Weeks said Winstar is requesting a provisional expansion of the unit, contingent on drilling results. Once the area underlain by a reservoir has been delineated, Winstar will apply for expansion of the participating area based on that delineation. There are no previous wells on the lease.

The company’s plan of exploration, submitted to the state as part of its application, says the Winstar Oliktok Point State No. 1 will be drilled north into the down-thrown fault block with some 7,700 feet of departure to a true vertical depth of approximately 6,700 feet “or to a depth sufficient to penetrate the base of the Kuparuk River formation.” If this well encounters oil, a second well will be drilled to the north to further define the reservoir extent. Winstar said the bottomhole of the second well will depend on data from the first well.

If the first well is unsuccessful, a sidetrack will be drilled to the up-thrown block. If this sidetrack is successful, it will be completed and operations suspended to evaluate data.

Upon completion of the assessment, Winstar said, a plan of development will be submitted to the Kuparuk River unit.

Lease acquired in 1997

Weeks told Petroleum News Alaska in October that an exploration well on the lease, planned for the first quarter of 2003, had been postponed because negotiations with ConocoPhillips were taking longer than hoped.

The company had planned to drill in 2001: In March of that year, Weeks told the Alaska Support Industry Alliance that Winstar planned to drill a well on the 1,280-acre tract one-half mile northeast of Oliktok Point that November, drilling a 7,500 foot step-out from an existing onshore pad.

Weeks credits the 1999 Charter for Development of the Alaska North Slope, which the state negotiated with BP and ARCO as a condition of BP’s acquisition of ARCO, as making it possible for independents to work in the state. But, he told the Resource Development Council’s annual conference last November, while the charter obligates the North Slope majors to furnish access to their facilities at reasonable terms, it doesn’t dictate terms. Weeks said it took two tries and more than a year and a half the second time because ConocoPhillips Alaska (Phillips Alaska when the discussions started) “didn’t want to assume obligations for drilling wells for an independent third party.”