|
North Slope drilling going steady
Total number of development wells drilled annually on the North Slope has remained relatively constant over the past three years
Alan Bailey Petroleum News
With development drilling on the North Slope picking up following the recovery from the oil price crash of 2014, the overall level of drilling in the North Slope oil fields remained relatively constant between 2016 and 2018, according to data available from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. A total of 98 production wells were drilled in 2016, 92 in 2017 and 90 in 2018. Many of these wells were sidetracks from existing well bores, with companies presumably ferreting out new oil pools in the region’s legacy oil fields. The drilling of injection wells was a bit more variable: 38 wells in 2016, 19 wells in 2017 and 22 wells in 2018.
The AOGCC data distinguishes between what the agency refers to as development wells and service wells - the development wells are oil producers, while the majority of the service wells are injectors, drilled for enhanced oil recovery through the injection of miscible injectant, gas or water.
Legacy fields The huge, legacy Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River fields tend to dominate the production well counts. The well count for Prudhoe Bay dropped from 40 in 2016 to 30 in 2017 and 15 in 2018, while the Kuparuk River count remained within the range 44 to 51. However, BP, the Prudhoe Bay operator, has been carrying out a very active non-rig well workover program at Prudhoe, to maintain production levels from the field - this workover activity does not figure in the AOGCC well data.
ConocoPhillips drilled a total of 23 injection wells in the Kuparuk River field in 2016. That number dropped to nine in 2017 and in 10 2018. BP drilled few injection wells in the Prudhoe Bay field: three in 2016, none in 2017 and three in 2018.
CD-5 development ConocoPhillips’ Colville River unit, with the Alpine oil field and the relatively new CD-5 development, also showed significant drilling activity. The company drilled 14 production and injection wells at CD-5 in 2016, as this development continued apace. Subsequent years saw drilling at various drill sites, with 16 wells drilled in 2017 and 11 drilled in 2018.
Hilcorp Alaska was active in the Milne Point field with nine production and injection wells in 2016, nine in 2017 and 13 in 2018. The company’s Endicott field saw the completion of one production well in 2017 and two more production wells in 2018.
Of note in 2016 was ExxonMobil’s completion early in the year of the single production well in the Point Thomson field. Caelus Energy Alaska drilled one production well and one injection well in the Oooguruk field in 2016, but there has been no further drilling at Oooguruk since then, after Caelus suspended drilling in the field in the wake of low oil prices. (Caelus sold its 70 percent interest in Oooguruk to Eni US Operating Co. at the beginning of the year; Eni already held a 30 percent working interest in the field.)
Drilling in ConocoPhillips’ Greater Mooses Tooth 1 development in the northeastern National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska appeared for the first time in 2018: there were four production wells and three injection wells completed that year.
In response to the downturn in oil prices in 2014, Eni has not conducted any drilling in its Nikaitchuq field since 2015, focusing instead on exploration drilling into the Nikaitchuq North prospect under the Beaufort Sea.
Exploration drilling The drilling of exploration wells on the North Slope followed a pattern of a quiet year in 2017 between two busy years in 2016 and 2018.
In 2016 Caelus drilled two wells in Smith Bay towards the western end of the Beaufort Sea coast, later announcing a major oil find in the Torok formation. ConocoPhillips drilled two wells in its NPR-A Willow prospect in the Nanushuk formation, later announcing a major oil find in the prospect. ASRC Exploration LLC drilled its successful Placer No. 3 well in the Placer unit. And 88 Energy subsidiary Accumulate Energy Alaska Inc. drilled the Icewine No. 1 well, adjacent the Dalton Highway.
In 2017 Accumulate returned and drilled a second Icewine well. Armstrong Energy found a significant oil accumulation in the Nanushuk in the company’s Horseshoe well and its sidetrack, on the east side of the Colville River.
There was a bumper year for exploration drilling in 2018, led by ConocoPhillips. The company drilled three appraisal wells in its Willow prospect and a successful exploration well in another prospect at West Willow. Near the Colville River, the company also found oil in the Nanushuk in the Putu and Stony Hill wells. At Badami, to the east of the central North Slope, Glacier Oil and Gas Corp. found oil with its Starfish exploration well (brought online as the B1-07). Also in 2018, Eni began the drilling of an extended reach well from its Nikaitchuq field to test the offshore Nikaitchuq North prospect.
| 