Anadarko’s Arctic platform assembled, Hot Ice drilling to start this month

Kay Cashman, PNA publisher & managing editor

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. spokesman Mark Hanley told Petroleum News Alaska March 6 that the assembly of the 10,000 square foot Arctic drilling platform is complete. Drilling is expected to begin sometime this month from the platform, which is at the Houston-based independent’s Hot Ice project south of the Kuparuk River unit on Alaska’s North Slope.

It will the first time the Arctic platform is tested.

All the equipment and the crew quarters sit on the platform which is 12 feet above the tundra. Hot Ice No. 1 will be the first completely cored gas hydrate well drilled in Alaska, Hanley said.

The modular platform, including the rig, weighs less than half a million pounds — compared to one to two million pounds for the big rigs without crew quarters — and can be transported via helicopter or rolligon. Anadarko has Brooks Range Foothills prospects, which are a long way from North Slope infrastructure. With the winter window for slope exploration shrinking, the mobile drilling platform provides an option for the company to explore without building costly ice roads or ice pads and explore over a longer period of time each year.

The Arctic platform could also replace gravel pads for production facilities and reduce the number of trips across the tundra, thereby reducing the environmental impact. (See related story on page 2.)