North Slope exploration under way: State authorizes tundra travel Jan. 10; five rigs to drill exploration wells

Phillips has ice road construction under way from Kuparuk and Nuiqsut; BP is building offshore ice road to NPR-A

Kristen Nelson

PNA News Editor

Five rigs will be drilling exploration wells on the North Slope this winter season, and with the tundra opened for travel Jan. 10, the season is officially under way.

Leon Lynch of the state Division of Mining, Land and Water in Fairbanks, told PNA Jan. 12 that this wasn’t the latest tundra opening. That occurred in the 1998-1999 winter season when tundra travel wasn’t authorized until Jan. 14. Over the past few years the openings have been mostly in January, although for the 1999-2000 winter season, tundra travel was authorized on state land Dec. 20, Lynch said.

This winter’s North Slope exploration prospects are focused to the west and south of Kuparuk, in the Colville River Delta north and south of Alpine, and in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, where both BP and Phillips plan to drill.

BP building 70-mile ice road

BP is building a 70-mile ice road, Chappell said, a large percentage of which is offshore. The ice road will parallel the shoreline to the point it comes ashore, he said. As of Jan. 12, BP had all of the necessary permits for its Trailblazer exploration project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and is on schedule, he said.

Three wells are planned for NPR-A, at three separate sites, he said. BP will use a single drilling rig for the NPR-A program. “Our ability to drill the second and third wells will depend on weather,” Chappell said.

BP has a five-year plan for NPR-A exploration in conjunction with partners Chevron and Phillips. BP staked locations in 1999, but did not drill in the 1999-2000 exploration season. The company’s Trailblazer prospect is northwest of Nuiqsut, and about twice as far into NPR-A as the program which Phillips began drilling last winter.

Some Phillips permits still pending

She said Phillips has started ice road construction from both Nuiqsut and Kuparuk. The idea, Patience said, is to build from both directions and meet in the middle.

Phillips has a four-rig exploration program planned, and will be using Doyon 141, Nabors 19E, Doyon 19 and Nabors 14E. Doyon 19, the Alpine-dedicated rig, will be used for Alpine satellite exploration drilling.

Patience said the state has been working closely with Phillips to get all of the necessary permits in place. All of the federal permits are in place for the company’s planned NPR-A drilling, she said, although there are still some state consistencies that have to be signed off.

“The state has been working very hard with us this week to get all those final permits in place,” Patience said Jan. 12.

The state said Jan. 18 that there were still permits which had not been issued.

Phillips drilled in NPR-A last winter and will be testing two of those three wells, drilling more wells in the same area and also expanding its program in NPR-A to the southwest.

Phillips will be drilling west of Kuparuk at its Palm prospect and southwest of Kuparuk at its SE Delta prospect, where the company applied for an exploration unit to hold leases set to expire in March.

In the Colville River Delta, Phillips will be drilling both north and south of Alpine on state and Native lands, including the Fiord, Alpine West, Nanuq, Nigliq and Sunrise prospects.

And Phillips is still pursuing permits for its Beaufort Sea McCovey prospect.

“We have not yet come to a final decision on timing, whether we’ll be able to complete that well this year,” Patience said. State permits or consistencies are missing for McCovey, and Patience said the company will make a call soon whether or not McCovey can be drilled this winter. A federal-state unit agreement was approved for McCovey in September. It requires the completion of work commitments, including one exploration well, by April 30, 2002. Phillips Alaska President Kevin Meyers said last year that if the company did not drill at McCovey in the 2000-2001 exploration season, it would defer the well to the following year.

Phillips Alaska is also planning one Cook Inlet exploration well later this year. Patience said no permits had been filed yet for the well, which will be drilled from onshore to an offshore prospect using extended reach drilling techniques.

The site is near the Anchor Point area, she said.

Seismic also active this year

Western Geophysical Co. will put two seismic crews in the field for a Phillips Alaska Inc. project south of Deadhorse running west almost to Nuiqsut. Western said plans are to shoot 500 to 1,000 square miles of 3-D seismic per crew between the Colville and Canning rivers. Western Geophysical is also shooting 500 square miles of 3-D and/or 2-D seismic for an unnamed client east of Deadhorse from the Sag River to Mikkelsen Bay.

Phillips Alaska has vertical seismic profiles approved for the 1 Atlas, 2 Atlas, 6 Fiord, 3 Nanuq, 4 Nanuq, 1 Nigliq, 2 Nigliq and 1 Palm exploration wells.

Petroleum Geo-Services Onshore Inc., PGS Onshore Inc., will shoot some 400 square miles of 3-D seismic for Anadarko Petroleum Corp. this winter in the first year of a planned three-year program in the foothills west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. PGS will also shoot 550 miles of 2-D seismic for Anadarko in the Brooks Range foothills between the Itkillik and Colville rivers southeast of NPR-A.

Fairweather Geophysical LLC will shoot 1,000 square miles of 3-D seismic from Harrison Bay to Oliktok Point and south, including federal, state and private land. No client was named.

Both Cook Inlet surveys will be shot by Fairweather Geophysical LLC. The company will do an onshore program for Unocal including 20 miles of 2-D seismic and 27 square miles of 3-D seismic in the area of the Theodore and Ivan rivers on the west side of Cook Inlet.

The second program is an onshore and offshore 56.5 square mile 3-D program for an unnamed client. The offshore portion will use the Arctic Wolf as mother ship and a shallow draft cable boat.