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Hilcorp requests rules, definition for 3rd gas pool at Beaver Creek
Hilcorp Alaska has requested that the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission amend pool rules for the Beaver Creek field to include a Tyonek gas pool definition. Beaver Creek, a federally managed unit on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, has oil production from the Tyonek formation and natural gas production from the Beluga, Sterling and Tyonek formations.
Gas pools are already defined in AOGCC pool rules for the Sterling, the shallowest accumulation, defined as gas common to and correlating with the accumulation present in the Beaver Creek Unit No. 1A well between measured depths of 5,188 and 6,370 feet, and the Beluga, gas common to and correlating with the accumulation in that same well between measured depths of 6,370 and 9,650 feet.
The Tyonek is the deepest of the gas accumulations at Beaver Creek, and Hilcorp has requested a definition of that gas pool as common to and correlating with the accumulation in the Beaver Creek Unit No. 4 well between 8,886 feet (equivalent to 9,650 feet in the BCU 1A well) and 14,518 feet.
Deepest gas Hilcorp told AOGCC Commissioners Cathy Foerster and Dan Seamount in a March 29 hearing that the proposed Tyonek gas pool is the gas found between the presently defined Sterling and Beluga gas pools and the defined Tyonek oil pool. The company said the Tyonek at Beaver Creek is similar to Tyonek elsewhere with abundant coal markers.
The Tyonek formation at Beaver Creek was relatively overlooked until a recent well found commercial gas, although there were three Tyonek gas tests beginning with a 1996 well. That well stopped producing prior to Hilcorp taking over the field. Hilcorp found gas in a well it tested in 2014, but that well quickly became unproductive. A well perforated in 2015 produced 11 million cubic feet a day in the Tyonek.
In its application Hilcorp said AOGCC established pool rules for Beaver Creek in 1988; in 2014, the commission removed intra-field well spacing requirements for the Sterling and Beluga gas pools, something Hilcorp is also requesting for the Tyonek gas pool, a change which would remove restrictions on gas well spacing except within 1,500 feet of the unit boundary where owners and landowners are not the same on both sides of the line.
The company said has also submitted a proposal to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Beaver Creek field manager, to establish a Tyonek gas participating area.
Work at field Hilcorp acquired Beaver Creek when it purchased Marathon’s Cook Inlet interests in 2012.
Starting in 2014, Hilcorp repaired or upgraded at least four pads at Beaver Creek. Planned 2015 work at the field included upgrades on compressors, pumps, engines, electrical and mechanical equipment, piping and flowlines.
Hilcorp work at Beaver Creek has also included drilling wells and sidetracks, with the commission approving a vertical expansion of the Beluga pool dimensions in 2014 to include all potentially gas-baring sands in the pool.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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