New Umiat unit shows promise of deeper oil in northern lease

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

A unit formed Sept. 1 on the southeastern edge of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska not only contains the Umiat oil field, but possibly a deeper oil target in the northern of its two leases.

Discovered by the U.S. Navy in 1946, Umiat was never produced because its reservoir is shallow, partially frozen in permafrost and low pressure; no companies have tried to produce such a reservoir on the North Slope.

The field’s distance from infrastructure was also a challenge, but now Umiat sits in a hot location - south of ConocoPhillips big Willow discovery and southwest of Oil Search’s even larger Pikka and Horseshoe discoveries.

Because the 12 wells drilled at the prospect between 1945 and 1952 by the Navy and the two modern wells drilled by former operator Linc Energy in 2013 and 2014, Umiat carries a unique public record of reserve estimates over the 70 years since its discovery.

In 2015, Ryder Scott estimated 2P reserves of nearly 99 million barrels of oil equivalent at the shallow Umiat field - down from 154.6 million in its previous report before oil prices tanked.

In a Jan. 16 letter, Umiat operator Malamute Energy Inc. President Leonard Sojka said the company’s focus since acquiring Umiat in 2016 has been to de-risk technical challenges in the field, “in hopes of attracting an oil industry partner.”

Malamute conducted a multidisciplinary reservoir workshop and extensive tests on Umiat oil and those tests, he said, “confirmed that both the gasoline and the diesel fractions are low in total sulfur and have less than detectable readings for dibenzyl disulfide. That makes the Umiat oil a good candidate for producing ultra low sulfur fuels for sale” to the North Slope market.

Malamute has three technical studies underway with the University of Alaska Anchorage, the first two of which are complete and the third expected to be finalized soon.

Anadarko Petroleum saw promise in the area in 2002, having conducted two proprietary seismic seasons and three field seasons as part of an assessment of the Brooks Range Foothills petroleum system.

“Seismic line across Umiat show hydrocarbons are reservoired in both the hanging wall and the foot wall of the structures,” Anadarko’s Greg Hebertson said.

“The seal capacity of traps - data from Umiat wells and field work and based on our analysis … show the seals are there and certainly capable of holding large hydrocarbon columns.”

Sojka also said Malamute was looking to find deeper oil at Umiat.

Paul Craig, who won the northernmost lease with partner Peter S. Zamarello in a June 2002 BLM lease sale, said Jan. 29, “when we purchased it our geological thinking was that the oil in the permafrost at Umiat was seepage from an oil field deep and to the north. When looking for an oil field look below and close to an existing oil field - I call it Nearology. Bottom line: we thought that’s where the big oil was; north of Umiat mountain.”

- KAY CASHMAN