Redoubt Shoal recoverable estimates keep going up

Kristen Nelson

Forest Oil Corp. is still officially showing recoverable oil from the Cook Inlet Redoubt Shoal field as more than 50 million barrels.

That’s the number that Gary Carlson, senior vice president of Forest’s Alaska business unit, has said in the past would make him happy.

Forest Oil told analysts after completion of the field’s second well (a third has now been completed) that it estimated the field holds 450 million barrels of original oil in place. Carlson told PNA in October that you’d expect a 25 percent recovery rate with water flood, which will be used at Redoubt Shoal.

Twenty-five percent of 450 million is 113 million barrels recoverable.

The state is looking at a higher number.

In a Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas presentation Nov. 8 to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Natural Gas Pipelines, geologist Tim Ryherd showed the committee a Cook Inlet exploration summary which included Redoubt Shoal.

The “field is bigger than originally thought,” the summary said.

Much bigger than 50 million barrels recoverable: the state is estimating up to 193 million barrels recoverable.

If the original oil in place is still pegged at 450 million barrels that’s a 43 percent recovery rate — a rate similar to the 40 percent Carlson said is being obtained from the McArthur River field with water flood.