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THE EXPLORERS 2006 - Shell plans four Beaufort wells in ‘07 Two wells at Siv Ullig, two at another location north of Camden Bay; seismic planned in Chukchi, Beaufort Alan Bailey Petroleum News
Rick Fox, Shell’s new asset manager for Alaska, said in late February 2006 that Shell was “ambitious about Alaska.”
He wasn’t jesting.
The mega-major returned to Alaska in March 2005 and shortly thereafter began moving at the pace of an independent, its primary focus on Alaska’s offshore.
Shell is moving ahead with its exploration plans for the northern Alaska outer continental shelf.
At the National Marine Fisheries Service’s annual Arctic Open Water Peer Review Meeting on Oct. 24, 2006, Shell Operations Manager Paul Smith said Shell plans to drill four wells in the U.S. Beaufort Sea during the 2007 open water season.
“The new thing we’re doing in 2007 will be drilling activities,” Smith said. “We have four wells planned for the Camden Bay area.”
Smith said that two of the wells will be at the Siv Ullig field (previously known as Hammerhead, then Kaktovik) and two will be some distance to the east of Siv Ullig, at a location named Olympia.
Drilling July to November The Kulluk, a floating drilling platform Shell purchased in 2006, will drill two of the wells.
And Shell is bringing in a drillship, the Discoverer, to drill the other two wells.
The Discoverer, which is being refurbished with a reinforced hull, will enter the Beaufort Sea at the beginning of the drilling season and will leave the region again at the end of the season, Smith said.
The drilling season will likely last from early July to early November, depending on the ice conditions.
Two icebreakers, the Vladimir Ignatyuk and the Kilabuk, will support the Kulluk and Discoverer.
Shell also plans to shoot seismic in both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in 2007. The company’s plans for the seismic surveys are similar to its 2006 plans — start surveying in the Chukchi in July, move into the Beaufort when ice conditions permit and then return to the Chukchi later in the season.
And, as with its 2006 program, Shell is contracting WesternGeco’s MV Gilavar for the seismic work.
Too much ice to shoot In practice, it proved impossible to conduct the Beaufort seismic work in the 2006 season because of an exceptionally large amount of sea ice in the region.
“We hoped to get into the Beaufort in 2006 but we were unable to,” Smith said.
The Beaufort Sea ice also limited the amount of site surveying that Shell was able to accomplish in 2006. So the company plans to continue with this surveying activity in 2007, looking for features such as shallow water hazards.
Shell is also planning to drill some 400-foot deep boreholes, to obtain soil strength data for the sea floor. The company will use that data in evaluating the design, cost and feasibility of future offshore oil facilities, Smith said.
Well cellars a possibility Smith also said that, time permitting in the 2007 open water season, Shell will drill some well cellars, in preparation for the following year’s drilling program.
The company had been planning to excavate the well cellars using the Kulluk during the 2006 open water season in order to get a jump on drilling for the following year, but in August 2006 said it was postponing the work until the following year.
“Mud-line cellar work is scheduled for 2007 and this adjusted schedule will allow the necessary time for comprehensive planning including extensive stakeholder consultation, regulatory review and staging,” a company official in Anchorage told Petroleum News Aug. 8.
Well cellars protect well equipment, such as blowout preventers, from ice scouring on the sea floor.
Shell said most of its Beaufort outer continental shelf leases “off Prudhoe and Kaktovik” were in 100 feet of water.
Stakeholder input crucial Smith stressed that in developing its plans for 2007 Shell will be talking to the North Slope communities and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission. All offshore work will be done in accordance with the terms of a conflict avoidance agreement with the North Slope whalers, he said.
In response to concerns about the potential impact of offshore seismic surveying on subsistence hunting, Smith said Shell is going to research possible techniques for seismic data acquisition from the sea ice during the winter.
“We’ve decided to do a research project and go out and see if there’s a way to do it,” he said. The company has a contract with Veritas to do this during the coming winter.
Veritas will be hiring a substantial number of people from the North Slope and establishing a camp of about 120 people about a half-mile offshore the West Dock at Prudhoe Bay, Smith said. The experimental survey will take place about 12 miles offshore. The research team will try a variety of sound sources, including vibrators and a small air gun, in conjunction with receivers, both deployed on the ice and hung below the ice.
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