Conoco permitting Kuparuk seismic

As part of its ongoing efforts to revitalize the aging Kuparuk River unit, ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. is permitting a 3-D seismic survey this winter in the Oliktok Point region

The proposed program would cover 103 square miles focused on the northern end of Kuparuk and including portions of the Milne Point, Oooguruk and Nikaitchuq units.

If approved, SAExploration would conduct the program.

The program would involve a 150-person camp on 38 sled-mounted units mobilized from Drill Site 3S, just south of the proposed survey area. The crew would use 12 rubber-tracked vibrators. The camp would follow the survey activity, moving every few days.

The proposed survey area includes 11 Kuparuk River unit drill sites and the Oliktok Point Pad, which serves the Eni US Operating Co. Inc.-operated Nikaitchuq unit to the north.

After drilling only one well in this region in 2013, according to the most recent Kuparuk River unit plan of development, ConocoPhillips completed various coiled-tubing drilled sidetracks across this region in 2014. Those included multilateral wells at DS-3C, DS-3N and especially DS-3Q, where the company completed a well with three laterals in August 2014, according to an Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission report. Earlier this year, the company permitted a well with five laterals at DS-3O, which has yet to be reported as completed. Those four drill sites sit along a road culminating at Oliktok Point.

The combination of coiled-tubing drilling and multilateral wells has been one of ConocoPhillips’s primary strategies for improving Kuparuk River unit production in recent years. Another is “infrastructure led exploration,” where the company focuses efforts near existing operations. After commissioning the 220 square mile Western Kuparuk 3-D seismic survey in 2011, ConocoPhillips appraised and is now developing DS-2S is the southwest corner of the unit and is currently appraising the potential of the Torok formation in the region around the Palm satellite at DS-3S, just to the north.

- Eric Lidji

Editor’s note: After filing its permitting paperwork for the Oliktok Point 3-D seismic survey in October 2014, ConocoPhillips decided to defer the program beyond 2015 because of the high activity level in the region.