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BP planning Midnight Sun EOR Injection well from Pt. McIntyre would bring miscible injection to Midnight Sun, which currently uses waterflood exclusively Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. is expanding enhanced oil recovery at Midnight Sun.
The British oil giant plans to drill a miscible injection well sometime early next year at the satellite field located at the center of the northern border of the Prudhoe Bay unit.
BP discovered the Midnight Sun field with the Sambuca No. 1 exploration well in 1997 and began production from the Kuparuk formation in October 1998, according to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The satellite is currently being developed with two producers and three injectors at E pad. The most recent was drilled in 2001.
Of the 100 million barrels of oil in place at Midnight Sun, BP had produced slightly more than 20 million barrels through July 2014. Oil production is currently below 1,000 barrels per day, according to a 2014 plan of development, which BP filed in September 2013.
Water injection to date Since BP began enhanced oil recovery operations at Midnight Sun in October 2000, the company has exclusively used water injections to improve reservoir pressure at the satellite. A 2001 upgrade of the produced water injection pump at Gathering Center No. 1, which handles Midnight Sun production, allowed BP to increase injection volumes to between 20,000 and 25,000 barrels per day and subsequently increase injection pressure.
A key metric for water injection is the relationship between the amount being injected and the amount being produced, a figure known as the “voidage replacement ratio,” or VRR. Current reservoir management strategy at Midnight Sun calls for BP to aim for a VRR between 1.0 and 1.3 with an average of 1.2. That range would maintain reservoir pressure while preventing oil from saturating the gas cap, according to BP. From July 2012 to July 2013, the average VRR at Midnight Sun was 1.08 and reservoir pressure remained “stable,” with a change of less than 50 pounds per square inch, according to BP.
Candidate for MI Even with that success, BP has noted that Midnight Sun is a candidate for miscible injection - the cocktail of water, solvents and/or gases used to improve recovery. The biggest obstacle was the lack of a miscible injection pipeline to supply the field.
The plan now is to drill a dedicated miscible injection well from the nearby Point McIntyre 1 pad to the east to supply Midnight Sun directly, rather than through a new pipeline.
The current plan is to use the Parker 273 rig to drill P1-122i from an existing slot at the Point McIntyre 1 pad to drill a “surface hole” to about 5,693 feet and an “intermediate hole” to about 10,746 feet. BP would cement the well through the productive Kuparuk interval.
The well would require a special easement. The northern boundary of the Prudhoe Bay unit is a jagged line. A straight line drawn from the Point McIntyre field to the Midnight Sun field would briefly pass through an Alaska Venture Capital Group lease - ADL 392146. To pass through the neighboring lease, BP needs special state permission.
The state Division of Oil and Gas is taking comments on the plan through Nov. 5.
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