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BP plans busy exploration season, both in NPR-A and satellites Company’s Alaska exploration head says this winter’s target in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is a structure the size of Kuparuk Kristen Nelson PNA News Editor
BP plans to stabilize its Alaska production in 2001 and grow it by 20 percent over the next five years, F.X. O’Keefe, vice president for exploration for BP’s Alaska operations, told the Resource Development Council for Alaska Oct. 5.
Some of that production will come from known fields, O’Keefe said, with Northstar scheduled to start production next year and BP “actively, aggressively pursuing options to develop Liberty and Point Thomson.”
The company will explore in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska this winter. And short-term production increases will come from satellite exploration work on state lands between the Colville and Canning rivers.
This year’s activity reflects the goal of increasing production, O’Keefe said: In 1999 BP drilled or participated in one exploration well; in 2000 the total was only two. In 2001, however, the company will drill or participate in eight to 10 wells. NPR-A structure Kuparuk sized In the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska BP will build two ice pads and drill a well from each and may drill multiple reservoir penetrations from each pad.
“Depending on the results we see from the initial vertical well on each pad,” O’Keefe said, “we may drill as many as two or three directional penetrations from each ice pad.” BP has not yet drilled in NPR-A, although it had begun permitting for work there last winter. O’Keefe said the ice pads are eight to 12 miles apart. “They’re in that same area. I think we permitted six locations when we started last year and we’ve added two this winter because we’ve changed our technical view a bit.”
BP is looking at “a very large structure” in NPR-A, he said. “It’s actually about the same size as the Kuparuk field structure. The primary uncertainty that we’re going to be out there testing this winter is what’s the reservoir quality,” he said.
“It may be a big structure, but we don’t yet know what kind of reservoir quality we’ll see there. So that’s really going to be the focus of our exploration program.”
“And realistically,” O’Keefe said, “if we get some encouragement, this will probably be a multi-year program before we actually know what’s there.”
Chevron and Phillips are BP’s partners on the prospect, and the combined spend on this winter’s NPR-A activity will be about $30 million, O’Keefe said.
The first step will be the construction of a 70-mile ice road from Oliktok Point to BP’s ice pad locations in NPR-A, 50 miles of that a sea ice road on the Beaufort Sea and 20 miles over tundra. That ice road construction is estimated to take two months, he said, and is expected to start in December. Existing areas active BP also expects to participate in six to eight exploratory wells on state acreage between the Colville and Canning rivers, O’Keefe said, noting that some key changes which began to unfold in early 2000 have made existing development areas more attractive.
BP has a new committed partner in Phillips, and “the alignment of Prudhoe interests and the move to single operatorship there has really improved the underlying health of our business,” he said.
“The base oil from our current sources is very healthy, healthier than it’s been in a long time,” O’Keefe said. “And it’s made new investment in that base very attractive.” BP’s combination on the West Coast with ARCO also enables the company “to move oil out of Alaska much more efficiently than we’ve been able to in the past,” he said.
BP has a new six-person team dedicated to “aggressively pursue exploration and development opportunities around existing infrastructure.”
A key technology for this development, O’Keefe said, is extended reach drilling, long-reach directional wells with bottomhole locations a considerable horizontal distance (the horizontal departure) from the surface well bore location. In Alaska that technique has reached 20,000 feet of horizontal departure at Niakuk — but at BP’s Wytch Farm in the United Kingdom, horizontal departures have been successful at 35,000 feet, “and so what we’re doing right now is building a technology development program to bring step outs of 30,000-40,000 feet to Alaska. And if we can do that,” O’Keefe said, “that will open up a whole new universe of satellite exploration opportunities from existing gravel.”
The goal, he said, is to make 40,000-foot horizontal step outs a part of the company’s normal business in Alaska.
By drilling from existing gravel pads, O’Keefe said, BP should be able to bring on production very quickly and is aiming “for a typical cycle time of much less than a year in this activity.” Also more development drilling BP also plans more development drilling that it has done in recent years.
“There was a time last year when we only had one rotary and two coiled tubing rigs running on the slope,” O’Keefe said. “In 2001, we expect to average seven rotary and three coiled tubing rigs through the year.”
BP will also be working on viscous oil development at Milne Point and in the Kuparuk River unit. BP operates Milne, Phillips Alaska Inc. at Kuparuk.
A combination of technology and cost breakthroughs, O’Keefe said, “have enabled us to get to the edge of what we think will be a major commercial development of the viscous oil.”
BP is currently completing its first multi-lateral well in the viscous oil at Milne Point — two or more separate horizontal completion zones off one well bore.
“It’s really a test,” he said. “And if it’s successful the viscous oil is a multi-billion barrel resource that we think we’ll be able to successfully develop there and around Kuparuk where our partner Phillips is the operator.”
O’Keefe said that BP will warm up a rig at Milne Point to be used in NPR-A.
“We certainly didn’t want to take a cold rig out there,” he said, “so we’ve got a new rig … that will be warmed up at Milne Point so that we know it’s operating smoothly and safely before we take it out to NPR-A. Then it will come back to operate in Milne Point.”
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