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Mackenzie Delta, Fort Liard on track for winter drilling Petro-Canada makes first announcement of Delta exploration well after logging a significant discovery in spring; Purcell a partner in first Fort Liard drilling since 2001 Gary Park PNA Canadian Correspondent
Northern Canada is beckoning, with two companies making the first announcements of winter drilling plans. Petro-Canada, in partnership with Devon Canada Energy Corp., said Nov. 1 that it plans to drill at least one exploration well in the Mackenzie Valley region in the 2002-03 winter drilling season.
Calgary-based junior Purcell Energy Ltd. said Oct. 30 that it is ready to emerge from a two-year hiatus and resume drilling in the Fort Liard region of the lower Northwest Territories, the play that first put the Calgary-based junior in the spotlight.
Although Petro-Canada offered no further details, it has been gearing up for further drilling on the Mackenzie Delta in hopes of securing pipeline space when gas from the Canadian Arctic is tied into North American markets.
Discovery announced in April Petro-Canada and Devon, which have rights to more than 1 million acres in the Delta, made a breakthrough in April by reporting a significant natural gas discovery on the Delta after their Tuk M-18 hole tested at a restricted rate of 30 million cubic feet per day.
They estimated sustained deliverability for the well, located 13 miles south of Tuktoyaktuk, at up to 80 million cubic feet per day from a recoverable reserve potential of about 300 billion cubic feet.
The find was the first major onshore gas discovery in the Arctic in 30 years, since Gulf Canada Resources Ltd. logged 1.8-trillion-cubic-foot at Parsons Lake in 1972 and Imperial Oil Ltd. discovered the 3 trillion-cubic-foot Taglu field in 1971 — two vital reserves that underpin the Mackenzie Delta Producers Group.
Since announcing Tuk M-18, the partners have been evaluating seismic data to firm up drilling locations, including information gathered from their Tuk B-02 and Kugpik L-46 wells, both of which failed to yield commercially viable gas volumes, but which were said to enhance knowledge of the regional prospectivity.
The company said Oct. 30 that a development well is planned for the natural gas property in January 2003, the first drilling since early 2001.
Gas moving to market Meanwhile, Purcell is “pleased that further development of the Fort Liard gas pool is now moving forward,” said president and chief executive officer Jan Alston, referring to the first Northwest Territories gas play to deliver gas to southern markets.
Purcell, which has a 24 percent interest in the upcoming well to be drilled directionally from the producing K-29 well, expects new production to be tied in to the K-29 facility by April 2003.
Chevron Canada Resources Ltd., the operator, has finished a comprehensive development plan that includes modifications to wellsite facilities and additional water-handling infrastructure to overcome problems that constrained gas production in spring 2001 to just under 50 million cubic feet per day.
Alston said at the time that although K-29’s performance had fluctuated, the problem lay with the “facility trying to handle the characteristics” of the well, not the well itself.
85 billion cubic feet produced #??in its latest release, said the three Fort Liard wells — K-29, M-25 and F-25A — have produced about 85 billion cubic feet of raw gas since May 2000 and continue to produce at constrained rates totaling 75 million cubic feet per day, with F-25A, in which Purcell has a 60 percent interest, trailing the others at less than 10 million cubic feet per day.
Alston said new field pressure data confirm substantial Fort Liard reserves and “supports drilling additional wells to achieve optimal reserves recovery.”
Purcell’s website said the present infrastructure, with some modifications, has the capacity to handle 180 million cubic feet per day of raw gas.
An updated reserves evaluation, completed April 1, 2002 by Gilbert Laustsen Jung Associates Ltd., made no adjustments to its earlier estimate of 184 billion cubic feet of proven recoverable gas sales for the three wells.
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