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Permitting continues for North Slope winter exploration wells ARCO plans at least three wells in NPR-A; BP will drill Gwydyr Bay exploration well; Phillips looks at 2001, 2002 Beaufort Sea well Kristen Nelson PNA News Editor
ARCO Alaska Inc. will drill exploratory wells this winter in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. ARCO will also be the operator on a well it will drill with BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. in Meltwater south of Tarn. BP will drill an exploratory well with partners ARCO and Exxon at Gwydyr Bay north of Prudhoe. Both ARCO and BP plan North Slope seismic work this winter.
F.X. O’Keefe, Alaska exploration business unit leader for BP Exploration, told PNA Dec. 13 that the Gwydyr Bay well, about six miles north of one of the Prudhoe Bay pads, is now on the Prudhoe Bay rig schedule.
In a plan of operations submitted to the state earlier in the fall, BP said it formed a partnership with ARCO and Exxon in 1995 to explore the Gwydyr area, where a number of wells have been drilled beginning in 1969. No fields large enough or close enough to infrastructure to warrant development have been found.
The 1 Pete’s Wicked, drilled in 1997, tested the eastern Gwydyr area. This winter’s well will explore the west Gwydyr area, BP said.
The well will be drilled some six miles north of S pad in the Prudhoe Bay unit and four miles east of K pad in the Milne Point unit. The surface lease, at 3-12N-12E,UM, is owned by BP, ARCO and Exxon. The site is onshore approximately 23 air miles northwest of Deadhorse and three miles from the Beaufort Sea coast. Access will be via an ice road from S pad.
South of Tarn O’Keefe said that BP will also participate in an ARCO-drilled well called Meltwater south of Tarn. He said the companies anticipate that drilling on both the West Gwydyr and Meltwater wells will begin in January. The detailed surveying and planning for ice roads is under way, he said, although the companies have not yet received clearance for tundra work.
O’Keefe said, BP is “still reevaluating what was learned on the east side (of the North Slope) last winter.” There is no drilling planned in the Point Thomson area this winter, he said.
He also said that there has been very strong interest in the exploration prospects BP is marketing as a result of the proposed acquisition of ARCO: “a number of companies have been back in touch after an initial visit.”
BP said earlier in the fall that the company does not plan to drill in NPR-A this winter because it wants more time to evaluate prospects, wants to wait until after the acquisition of ARCO is complete so it can look at ARCO’s data and also have results from NPR-A lease sales which it will make as part of its agreement with the state of Alaska over the ARCO acquisition.
NPR-A focus for ARCO ARCO Alaska plans to drill as many as three wells in NPR-A this winter, spokeswoman Dawn Patience told PNA Dec. 10.
“Logistically, that’s what we think we can get in — it depends on the length of the work season,” she said. Patience said ARCO will also participate in two to four satellite wells. Possible locations include near Alpine, near Tarn and the west end of Prudhoe Bay.
Patience said that ARCO has three rigs working. Doyon 19 is at Alpine; Nabors 16-E (formerly Pool 6) is at Kuparuk; Nabors 19-E (formerly Pool 9), has been re-outfitted and is on location in Kuparuk and going through final checkouts. Nabors 19-E is the rig that ARCO will use for exploration this winter, Patience said. The rig will drill at Kuparuk before it goes out for exploration drilling.
The North Slope Borough Planning Commission has scheduled a public hearing in Nuiqsut Jan. 10 “to review the merits of establishing a temporary ice airstrip on a frozen lake within NPR-A to support drilling exploration.
” The airstrip would be located at township 10N, range 2E, sections 10, 14 and 15, Umiat meridian, to the southwest of ARCO’s proposed NPR-A Spark exploration well, one of five wells (at eight possible locations) which the company listed on applications submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management earlier this fall.
ARCO’s Clover prospect (two possible locations) is the farthest east. Moving west, the next drilling prospect is Lookout, then ARCO Spark, Rendezvous (two possible locations) and Moose’s Tooth (two possible locations).
Two seismic crews likely O’Keefe said BP plans to have a seismic crew for a full season on the west side in the Colville region, beginning a shoot which will take more than one season to acquire. The target date for getting on the tundra, he said, is Jan. 15.
ARCO is also still anticipating having a seismic crew, Patience said, although that, she said, is dependent on permitting and partner approval.
The BP seismic acquisition will be 3-D, meant to tie into existing 3-D data sets, O’Keefe said. He said he estimates that about 350 square miles will be acquired, less than last winter in NPR-A because the terrain is ore difficult in the Colville area.
Phillips budgets some 2000 North Slope exploration money Phillips Petroleum Co.’s 2000 spending plans, released Dec. 13, included an unspecified amount of money for exploration work on the North Slope. The company has talked about a Beaufort Sea well in the Cross Island area, and the company’s Alaska operations manager, Jim Konst, told PNA that the company had held a pre-application meeting for that project with the state Division of Governmental Coordination and other agencies.
No application has yet been submitted, Konst said, and the earliest a well would be drilled is the winter of 2000-2001; it could be the winter of 2001-2002. The 2000 dollars, he said, could represent Phillips’ share of NPR-A or other North Slope projects operated by partners.
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