ASRC files ops plan for Placer well

ASRC Exploration LLC has filed a plan of operations for its Placer No. 3 well.

The subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corp. plans to drill the exploration well this winter on a temporary ice pad located some 3 miles east of the Colville River Delta.

The company plans to use the Kuukpik No. 5 drilling rig to drill Placer No. 3 from a 500-foot by 500-foot ice pad. The company plans to access the pad using existing gravel roads in the ConocoPhillips-operated Kuparuk River unit and a temporary ice road from the Mustang pad in the Brooks Range Petroleum Corp.-operated Southern Miluveach unit.

If the well is successful, ASRC Exploration would complete the well, demobilize the rig and conduct a 30-day flow test, trucking produced liquids to existing facilities, flaring produced natural gas and storing drilling fluids for future disposal in a Class II well.

Depending on the results of Placer No. 3, the company might also decide to plug and abandon the Placer No. 1 well, drilled about a mile away more than a decade ago.

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is taking comments through Dec. 15.

- ERIC LIDJI