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Great Bear pad expansion plans approved
An earlier approval allowed movement of ingress driveway for Alkaid 2, providing distance from an Alyeska test station and valve Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Great Bear Pantheon LLC has received approval from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas to expand pads for the Alkaid 2 and 3 exploration wells, a change from May approvals in the Alkaid unit plan of operation.
The plan covers Alkaid 2 and Alkaid 3 in the exploration phase of the unit. Pads for the wells are some 4 miles apart, with each 1,000 feet west of the Dalton Highway.
Alkaid 2 ingress driveway In May, Great Bear Pantheon received approval from the division to change the location of the Alkaid 2 ingress road. After receiving its original approval, Great Bear was informed by Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. that the Alkaid 2 ingress driveway was within the Alyeska mandated setback from a test station and fuel gas line valve.
Great Bear then planned a new location some 1,400 feet south of the initial location. “The relocated driveway is expected to require roughly 11,000 cubic yards less gravel to construct than the original planned road,” the division said in a May 18 approval of the change.
Alkaid 2 is some 16 miles southwest of the Deadhorse airport.
Pad expansion approval In a June 8 approval, an amendment to the plan of operations was approved allowing for expansion of the pads for Alkaid 2 and Alkaid 3.
The division said that in the previous approved lease plan of operations, the drill pads were proposed as 260 feet long and 500 feet wide. “Due to simultaneous operations during completion and flowback testing activities and to safety accommodate the equipment and the fire code setback requirements, Great Bear is proposing to expand the pads by 50 feet along the eastern edge of each pad, which will also reduce the length of the egress driveway,” the division said.
The division said that because of the previously approved relocation of the ingress driveway for Alkaid 2, “as well as the shortening of the egress driveways, the net result of the two amendments is still a reduction in the footprint of the originally approved Unit Plan of Operations of approximately 26,000 square feet.”
Alkaid 3 is some 20 miles southwest of the Deadhorse Airport.
Exploration phase In approving the Alkaid 2 and Alkaid 3 exploration program in May, the division said that in addition to the two pads, Great Bear will also construct a staging pad using rig mats on the former Alcor 1 site, directly across the Dalton Highway from the Alkaid 2 ingress road, with the staging pad to be primarily used for tubular storage and conex with dry supplies.
Alkaid 2 construction was expected to begin in mid to late May, the division said in its May 13 approval, with drilling activities in July. Construction for Alkaid 3 will begin after Alkaid 2 is completed, and not before July 31. Great Bear will source water from Annie Pit, the Sagavanirktok River and a pair of lakes 1.5 miles south of Alkaid 2, with gravel to be sourced from an existing material site at Dalton Highway milepost 390.
The drill rig is scheduled to be moved to Alkaid 2 around the first of July, followed by rig up and spud, with drilling, casing and fracking of Alkaid 2 proposed to begin in mid-July and run through mid-October, with Alkaid 2 flow testing proposed from mid-October through the end of May 2023.
As previously reported in Petroleum News (see “Pantheon secures rig” in May 29 issue), Great Bear has a contract for Nabors Rig 105AC for the Alkaid 2 well.
Construction of the Alkaid 3 gravel driveways and drill pad is proposed for mid-July through mid-August, with the rig proposed to move to Alkaid in February 2023, and drilling and casing of that well occurring from mid-February through the end of March. Fracking and flow testing of Alkaid 3 is proposed for mid-May 2023 through Feb. 1, 2024.
Alkaid 2 objectives Great Bear told the division in April that there are three objectives for the Alkaid 2 well:
*Appraising the shallower Shelf Margin Deltaic horizon, which company management believes contains 2.6 billion barrels of oil in place and 404 million barrels of recoverable oil.
*Beginning a long-term production test of the primary objective Alkaid horizon, which independent expert engineering firm Lee Keeling & Associates estimates to contain 76.5 million barrels of oil contingent resources (recoverable).
*Evaluating the extend of the oil column within the Alkaid horizon immediately below the total depth of Alkaid 1.
Pantheon Resources in a May presentation listed two objections at the Alkaid 2 well: appraising oil in place in the shelf margin deltaic and an Alkaid production test.
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