Anadarko to drill three wells on North Slope this winter

Kay Cashman, publisher

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. spokesman Mark Hanley told PNA July 11 that the company plans to drill three wells on the North Slope this winter; two gas hydrate wells and one traditional well.

The hydrate wells will be drilled on 100 percent Anadarko leases east of Tarn and south of Prudhoe Bay.

The location of the third well has not been decided, Hanley said, but Anadarko has “several options” in the form of existing permits for wells in the Brooks Range Foothills, the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the western North Slope.

In addition, according to the state, Anadarko is looking at filing permits for other Foothills wells.

“We’re still processing seismic from last winter, so no final decision has been made on the location of the well,” Hanley said.

Anadarko still has Nabors Alaska Drilling Rig 14-E under contract, he said, the rig the company used for its NPR-A Altamura No. 1 exploration well, and will use again this year. The company suspended its Altamura No. 1 on April 11 in order to do further testing, Hanley said.

A Bureau of Land Management official told PNA that the company’s permit for Altamura No. 2 expires in early January and so would have to be renewed in order for Anadarko to drill it this year.

A different rig will be used for the hydrate wells, Hanley said, part of a project that is partly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, with $3.99 million expected to come from DOE and $3.37 from three private companies — Houston-based Maurer Technology Inc., the lead contractor, and its partners Noble Engineering and Development Ltd., both subsidiaries of Noble Drilling Corp., and Anadarko.

Anadarko is in charge of designing a portable lab for on-site core analysis and storage.

Tom Williams, the Maurer employee who heads up the North Slope hydrates project, told PNA in early March that the kind of rig that would be used would one with a capacity to drill 1,500-3,000 feet, “more like mining drilling rigs than conventional oil rigs.”