Sidebar: Little something extra

Petroleum News

Lagniappe is a Cajun word that loosely translates into "a little something extra" or "a good unexpected surprise" -- apropos for the Nanushuk play on the North Slope, which Armstrong and a partner first drilled and identified as a huge oil reservoir in 2013 (Qugruk 3 well). The discovery led to the Pikka oil field.

"The Nanushuk discoveries at Pikka were a big surprise to the industry as it was a shallow horizon in and amongst deeper developments in the Alpine and Kuparuk River field areas," Bill Armstrong said.

"The size of the Nanushuk fields was the biggest surprise with several of the new fields estimated to be in excess of 1 billion barrels of recoverable oil."

Armstrong said the Nanushuk play is still in its infancy and Pikka-size oil discoveries are likely repeatable across Alaska's North Slope, stretching 350 miles from the western edge of the state near the Chukchi Sea, through the bourgeoning Pikka/Willow complex, all the way to the eastern edge of Alaska state lands.

--Reprinted from The Explorers magazine, June 2023