State approves PA expansion at Kuparuk

Expansion at Kuparuk River unit is 13th for participating area, currently 194,428 acres, will grow by 3,360 to 197,788 acres

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas has approved the 13th expansion of the Kuparuk participating area at the Kuparuk River unit on the North Slope.

ConocoPhillips Alaska, the Kuparuk unit operator, applied for the expansion in June. Prior to that the Kuparuk PA was 194,428 acres. With the 3,360-acre addition, there are now 197,788 acres in the PA.

The Kuparuk PA is the largest at the Kuparuk River unit. Others are Meltwater, Tabasco, Tarn, West Sak and NEWS.

In its application the company said confidential information included showed the 13th expansion area “is reasonably estimated to be capable of producing or contributing to the production of oil in paying quantities.”

The division agreed, approving the expansion Dec. 14.

The decision, signed by Director Tom Stokes, included a brief history of the Kuparuk River oil pool, which was discovered at the Sinclair Ugnu No. 1 well in 1969.

“In terms of area, this pool is the second largest on the Arctic Slope of Alaska, occupying approximately 500 square miles,” and is defined as the accumulation of oil common to and correlated with the accumulation found in the ARCO West Sak River State No. 1 between measured depths of 6,474 and 6,800 feet, the division said.

Production from the Kuparuk PA began in December 1981 and peaked in 1992 at an average of 324,000 barrels per day. In 2019, daily production from the KPA averaged 73,000 bpd, with cumulative production from the KPA of more than 2.5 billion barrels of oil.

The KPA has been expanded 12 times “as drilling and advancing technology has continued to expand the productive margins of the field,” the division said.

The acreage proposed for the 13th expansion is in two areas along the western periphery within the unit - the northern area, some 2,880 acres, between existing Kuparuk drill sites 3G and 3S (Palm) and the southern area, some 480 acres, west of drill sites 2A and 2T.

Recent development

The 3S-08 well, drilled in 2003 between the 3S and 3G drill sites, confirmed sands in both Kuparuk A and C intervals, “but was sidetracked to another location prior to completion.”

The company drilled and completed the 3G-28, a producer, and the 3G-27, an injector - both horizontal wells, “directly south of the original 3G-08 well in State Lease ADL 25546,” the division said. The initial peak oil rate from 3G-28 exceeded 2,700 bpd in September 2019; currently the well is producing some 700 bpd.

“Since 3G-27 and 3G-28 are currently outside the existing KPA, they are both operated as Unit Tract Operations until the KPA is expanded to include them.” Results of the wells “demonstrate that a productive reservoir is present, and in conjunction with updated mapping, support the interpretation that a sufficient resource is present to support drilling additional wells in the future within the proposed northern expansion area,” the division said.

In the smaller, southern expansion area, ConocoPhillips used a CTD rig to drill and complete horizontal production lateral wells 2A-22A and 2A-22AL1 within a portion of lease ADL 25571 outside the current KPL boundary. Those two wells currently produce a combined rate of some 230 bpd. In 2018 the company drilled and completed two CTD horizontal production lateral wellbores from the existing Kuparuk 2T-37 wells in lease ADL 25568, one of which, 2T-37L1-01, “extends, and is producing, from beyond the current KPA boundary.”

The division said the southern portion of the proposed expansion encompasses “lands currently allocated production with an approved tract operation.”

The division said it found that the 13th expansion of the KRA promotes conservation of all natural resources, promotes prevention of economic and physical waste and provides for the protection of all parties of interest, including the state.