Anadarko gets partner approval for test

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is returning to the Brooks Range foothills.

The Texas independent recently confirmed that it has received approval from partners BG Group and Suncor Energy to test an exploration well it drilled several winters ago. “We’re hoping to get out there this winter to do a stimulated test of the gas zones that we discovered,” Anadarko spokesman Mark Hanley told Petroleum News on July 20.

“Out there” is the Chandler No. 1 well that Anadarko began drilling in early 2008 and completed in early 2009 near the Colville River and the Umiat airstrip.

The “rig-less test” will include fracture stimulation work, Hanley said. “We know there is gas there,” Hanley said. “Testing will give us a lot more information about how the reservoir and rocks will perform, what kind of flow rates and volumes we can get.”

The program was the first to specifically target natural gas in northern Alaska, a region without any major natural gas transportation infrastructure. Anadarko is returning to the area as the state is ramping up its efforts to sponsor an in-state gas line to Fairbanks and Anchorage.

Anadarko is already permitting its return.

The company recently applied for a land use permit from the Alaska Division of Mining, Land and Water to use the Franklin Bluffs staging pad for mobilization efforts.

Anadarko wants to use about 11 acres of the pad from October 2011 to May 2012.

The company eventually plans to build a snow and ice road from Franklin Bluffs, along the Dalton Highway, to the Chandler No. 1 well site near the Colville River.

Anadarko also recently applied for a permit to set thermistor strings along the proposed ice road route. Those would provide real-time ground temperature data that Anadarko would use to determine when the ground is frozen enough for heavy equipment.

—Eric Lidji