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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
October 2021

Vol. 26, No.41 Week of October 10, 2021

Hilcorp asks Deep Creek well exceptions

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Hilcorp Alaska has applied to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation commission for a spacing exception for production of the HVB-15 development well in the Kenai Peninsula Deep Creek unit and for permission to commingle production from the Beluga/Tyonek gas pool and the Undefined Sterling gas pool in that well.

Hilcorp said it drilled the HVB-15 well in 2012 at the Deep Creek field, targeting sands in the Beluga/Tyonek gas pool. The well has produced from various Beluga sands within the Beluga/Tyonek gas pool since 2012 and is currently producing from the Beluga 1-3 sands. The company now wants to perforate the well into the shallower Sterling sands.

In its public notice on the Hilcorp requests AOGCC said it isn’t uncommon for wells to encounter multiple pools. “In these situations, normally an operator will first produce from the deepest pool in the well until it is depleted, then plug off that pool and move up to the next pool and repeat the process until all the pools have been depleted. Sometimes one or more of these pools is not large enough tow arrant production/injection operations on its own, or there are other reasons to allow comingled production/injection,” and the operator will apply for an order allowing downhole commingling. The commission said it reviews these requests “to assure waste will not occur and all owners receive their share of the production.”

In its request Hilcorp said adding proposed Undefined Sterling gas pool sands and commingling would allow it to produce Sterling sands which would not sustain flow on their own and by producing the two pools together production would be accelerated and the life of the well would be extended.

Seven Sterling zones and one Beluga zone are being targeted to add production, Hilcorp told the commission. There are currently three Beluga zones in production.

Without AOGCC permission to commingle the flow from the different pools, Hilcorp said, it would likely bypass potential Sterling zones and possibly plug and abandon the well after depletion of currently producing sands, reducing ultimate recovery from the field.

Spacing exception

The commission said well spacing regulations protect oil and gas rights of adjacent landowners and maximize resource recovery. Exceptions to default well spacing requirements are not unusual, but the commission said it “carefully evaluates each application and typically grants them only when actual geologic conditions demonstrate that the proposed subsurface location of a well is necessary to reach otherwise unreachable oil or gas, and that both the rights of adjacent landowners and underground drinking water can be protected.”

Well spacing is an issue the commission deals with in pool rules, established in conservation orders.

Hilcorp said there is a conservation order governing Deep Creek, but it does not include Sterling formation sands, thus the necessity for an exception to spacing rules because HVB-15 will be the second well within the government section and will be within 3,000 feet of another well producing from or capable of producing from the same pool.

The company said proposed perforations in the HVB-15 well will target “discontinuous channel sands in the Undefined Sterling within Deep Creek Field that cannot be produced by wells conforming to applicable spacing restrictions.”

AOGCC has tentatively scheduled a virtual public hearing for Nov. 9 at 10 a.m. and said the hearing will be held if a written request is received by 4:30 p.m. Nov. 1, otherwise the commission may consider issuance of an order without a hearing.






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