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Aurora’s Aspen well a disappointment
Alan Bailey
An exploration well at Aurora Gas’ Aspen prospect has failed to find commercial quantities of gas, Ed Jones, Aurora’s vice president of engineering and operations, has told Petroleum News.
“The well was drilled to a total depth of 4,485 feet and found sub-commercial gas,” Jones said. “We tested a number of zones but the well did not test gas flow at high enough rates to make a completion worthwhile.”
Aurora has set plugs in the well, pending a decision on whether to use the well bore for other purposes such as a sidetrack or deepening. In August Andy Clifford, Aurora’s vice president for exploration, told Petroleum News that Aurora planned to drill deep for oil at Aspen, after drilling the company’s Endeavour oil prospect on the Kenai Peninsula.
The Aspen prospect is west of Tyonek, about three miles from the coast on the west side of the Cook Inlet. But a successful season Disappointment at Aspen comes in an otherwise successful drilling season for Aurora, with new gas wells in the Three Mile Creek, Moquawkie and Lone Creek fields proving very productive — the new Moquawkie No. 3 well is delivering gas at 3-4 million cubic feet per day, and the new Lone Creek No. 3 well has been tested at “‘absolute open flow’ rates of about 40 million cubic feet per day from four-point flow test,” Jones said.
The Three Mile Creek field came on stream on Aug. 13 and is delivering gas at a little over 4 million cubic feet per day, he said.
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