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Great Bear files ops plan for Winx well in western lease block
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Great Bear Petroleum Operating LLC has filed a lease plan of operations with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas, for an exploration well within the western lease block this winter season.
The Winx No. 1 well will be drilled in section 21 of township 8 north, range 5 east, Umiat Meridian, on one of a block of four leases on which the expiration date was recently extended to April 30, 2021, on the condition that a well be drilled by May 30, 2019.
Three Australian companies - 88 Energy Ltd., Otto Energy Ltd. and Red Emperor Ltd. - have acquired a collective 90 percent interest in the leases from Great Bear, which has an option to acquire back 10 percent working interest in the leases if it pays its pro-rata share of the drilling costs.
88 Energy said in late August that its wholly owned subsidiary Captivate Energy Alaska had contracted the Nordic-Calista Services rig 3 to drill the Winx prospect.
Nanushuk In its lease plan of operations Great Bear said the primary drilling objectives include testing and evaluating the Nanushuk formation. Plans include 11 miles of ice and snow roads, an ice pad 700 by 250 feet.
The plan says the well will be drilled to about 12,000 feet true vertical depth to test stacked conventional objectives within the Nanushuk Formation.
The company said the well may be tested and hydraulically stimulated/flow tested and may include laterals, sidetracks or additional penetrations from the same wellbore. Also possible are wireline logging and related seismic surveys, such as vertical seismic profiles.
The well will be plugged and abandoned or suspended.
East of Horseshoe In discussing its acquisition of interest in the Great Bear western block leases earlier this year, 88 Energy said the leases lie east of the Horseshoe wells, where Armstrong Energy found oil in the Nanushuk formation in 2017.
The Western Block transaction represents a significant opportunity for 88E shareholders to gain exposure to one of the most prospective oil plays available globally, David Wall, managing director of 88 Energy, said when the acquisition was announced.
The company said at that time that Otto Energy, one of its partners in the acquisition of interest in the leases, used seismic data acquired from the division to identify a prospect in the leases at a depth of about 5,000 feet in the Nanushuk, and said the prospect had a mean estimated gross size of 400 million barrels of oil, with a chance of success in the range of 25 to 30 percent.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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