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Winstar’s North Slope well a duster; working on other slope prospects
Kay Cashman, Petroleum News publisher & managing editor
In a written statement to Petroleum News titled, “We’ll be back,” Winstar Petroleum President Jim Weeks said Tuesday, July 8, that the independent’s first well on Alaska’s North Slope was a duster.
“The Winstar Oliktok Point State No. 1 well reached total depth Sunday afternoon, with disappointing geological results. Winstar decided to plug and abandon the hole on Monday afternoon, and the Doyon Rig 141 was released,” Weeks said.
The well was spud on June 26 by ConocoPhillips for Winstar from onshore drill site 3-R on the northern edge of the Kuparuk River unit to an offshore target that is part of Winstar’s 1,280-acre lease. The lease was recently included in the Kuparuk unit, which is operated by ConocoPhillips.
“This is a huge disappointment to all the Winstar leaseholders and investors in this well,” Weeks said. “We were all excited about the prospect of becoming the first Alaskan owned and based independent to produce oil from the North Slope, but we must now wait for another occasion to celebrate. Looking near Point McIntyre, Liberty, Badami “We are anxious and excited to see what prospects there are on our other acreage positions in the Point McIntyre, Liberty and Badami areas, and to bring those prospects to drillable status,” he said.
Winstar and its sister company, UltraStar Exploration, have more than 21,000 other acres of state leases on the North Slope, plus an over-ride on a nearly 2,000 acre lease near Thetis Island that was recently assigned to Pioneer Resources and Armstrong Resources.
Weeks said Winstar has a license from BP Exploration (Alaska) to more 50 square miles of 3-D seismic data covering a substantial portion of Winstar’s Liberty and Badami area leases, and last year awarded a contract to a subsidiary of Chroma Energy of Sugar Land, Texas, “to evaluate the seismic and work up prospects.” Well drilled safely, efficiently In spite of the geological failure of Oliktok Point State No. 1, “the well was successful in that it was drilled safely and efficiently for the budgeted amount of money into the targeted formation with no environmental incidents,” Weeks said. “We got to see what we wanted to see for the price we agreed to pay. I’d like to commend and publicly thank the Doyon rig team, the numerous oil field service contractors, and ConocoPhillips Alaska, who operated this well and allowed us to have this prospect evaluated.”
He also acknowledged the other Kuparuk River unit owners, “BP, Unocal, ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil, for their support of the access agreements to Kuparuk production facilities and drill site that enabled us to get the well drilled.”
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