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Division approves 9th Colville expansion
Addition is 3,200 acres, an ASRC oil & gas lease on southwestern edge of unit, based on drilling suggestions from CD5 drill site Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Alaska Division of Oil and Gas has approved the ninth expansion of ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Colville River unit on the North Slope, a single Arctic Slope Regional Corp. oil and gas lease of 3,200 acres. A map accompanying the April 22 approval shows the lease on the southwestern edge of the unit, just west of the Colville River.
The Alpine field was discovered in 1994 by ARCO Alaska. Development drilling began in 1998 with regular production from the Alpine sands beginning in 2000.
Wells targeting Alpine have been drilled from drill sites CD1, CS2, CD4 and CD5. CD5, the most recent addition, began production in 2015. The division said that to date 10 producers and 10 injectors have been drilled from CD5, with production totaling some 18 million barrels from the Alpine oil sands, Jurassic shallow sandstones, with thicknesses ranging from 14 feet in the lower Alpine A to 40-120 feet in the upper Alpine C.
“While the lower Alpine A sands are generally so thick that they are considered to be below seismic resolution, recent drilling results from the southern row of CD5 wells (CD5-25 and CD5-19) suggest that the Alpine A sands may extend to the south into the proposed expansion area,” the division said.
There is also a secondary Brookian reservoir target in the ninth expansion that justifies the eastern portion of the expansion area immediately adjacent to the fifth and eighth Colville expansion areas, the division said.
“Review of the geological, geophysical, and engineering data has allowed the Division to reasonably establish the potential for both the Alpine and shallower Brookian reservoir intervals in the proposed expansion acreage,” the division said in its decision.
2019 development drilling The ninth expansion area is necessary to ConocoPhillips 2019 development drilling plans and continues the exploration of Colville River unit reservoirs, the division said.
ConocoPhillips requested a date certain before which the ninth expansion area could not be contracted out of the unit, but the division said expansion approvals do not defer contraction. The Department of Natural Resources commission has authority to contract the unit “from time to time after 10 years have passed since first production,” and said “DNR cannot modify or contract away its regulatory discretion.”
But the company would get notice and an opportunity to be heard before there was a contraction, the division said.
Parties of interest The Colville River unit is jointly managed by the state of Alaska, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The unit contains state oil and gas leases, ASRC oil and gas leases, jointly owned state and ASRC oil and gas leases and BLM oil and gas leases.
The division decision, signed by Acting Director Jim Beckham, said expansion of the unit protects the economic interests of the working interest owners, the state, ASRC and BLM.
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