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Hilcorp to drill North Trading Bay unit Production from Spark, Spur, stopped in 2005; company plans to drill sidetrack from Monopod; goal to return field to production Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Alaska Oil and Gas Division Director Tom Stokes has approved Hilcorp Alaska’s 2021 plan of development for the North Trading Bay unit. This follows a 2019 termination of the unit by the division for lack of “diligent operations to restore production.”
Hilcorp appealed that decision, and in 2020, Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige reversed denial of the 2019 POD and termination of the unit and invited Hilcorp to submit a new POD. That POD would allow Hilcorp 16 months to identify drill targets which it would have until the end of the subsequent POD period to drill. If that drilling was not done, the NTBU would automatically terminate.
The company has now identified drilling targets within NTBU.
Lighthoused platforms North Trading Bay is one of the original offshore Cook Inlet field developments.
Stokes said in his Sept. 7 decision that Marathon Oil Co. built the Spur and Spark platforms in the NTBU in 1967, but the unit has not been in production since 2005, when Marathon was the operator.
In 2008 Marathon proposed a long-term conceptual abandonment plan, but no plan was implemented.
Hilcorp became operator in 2013.
“The platforms are currently maintained in ‘lighthouse’ mode,” Stokes said. “The crane and helidecks are functional; however, crew facilities are not functional, and no wells are currently active.”
In 2017 Hilcorp told the division it would not be economic or technically feasible to return the platforms to production and said it had no plans to restore either Spark or Spur to production.
In 2017 Hilcorp’s plan was to restore NTBU production by drilling the A-04RD well from the Monopod in the Trading Bay unit. That well, proposed for the 2018 POD period, was not drilled.
In its 2019 POD, Hilcorp proposed to sidetrack the A-10 well from the Monopod, rather than the A-04RD.
The A-10 would have delineated acreage geologically connected to but outside NTBU. If that well was successful, Hilcorp would have petitioned to have the NTBU expanded to include that acreage.
It was at that point that the division denied that proposed POD and administratively terminated the unit.
Current plan Under the new POD submitted after the commissioner reversed the division’s denial and termination decision, Hilcorp has identified Tyonek reservoir drilling targets, Stokes said, and identified the A-10RD and A-09RD wells as the best candidates for sidetracking.
For the 2021 POD, Hilcorp “proposes to sidetrack the A-10RD well into the Tyonek Gas Sands inside the NTBU boundary,” he said. If that drilling is successful, the company would return NTBU to production.
The company proposed a 20-month POD period for 2021, aligning the NTBU POD with other Cook Inlet units.
Stokes said that because of the longer than usual POD period, the division was requiring the company to submit quarterly reports on its progress in drilling and returning the unit to production.
The 2021 POD is approved for Oct. 15, 2021, through June 30, 2023, and, Stokes said, if targets described in the POD are not drilled by the end of the POD period, “the NTBU will automatically terminate.”
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