Hilcorp permits five new test wells

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

0Hilcorp Alaska has obtained permits from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for the drilling of five new stratigraphic test wells in the southern Kenai Peninsula. According to AOGCC data, the wells, called the Whiskey Gulch wells, would be drilled onshore on private land in an area immediately north of Anchor Point. Hilcorp has not responded to requests for further information about the planned wells.

Hilcorp recently undertook a drilling program involving eight Seaview stratigraphic test wells near Anchor Point. AOGCC data indicate that seven of these wells were drilled to depths of a few hundred feet and plugged and abandoned in August and September 2017. The Seaview No. 8 well was completed in December 2018 to a vertical depth of 10,148 feet. AGOCC data indicate that the well encountered natural gas.

According to state documents, Hilcorp planned to perforate the first 5,500 feet of the Seaview No. 8 well to evaluate gas zones, with the well extending into private subsurface land at greater depths to explore for oil. The state documents also indicated that Hilcorp planned to drill a Seaview No. 9 well, but there is no AOGCC record of a permit for that well.

- ALAN BAILEY