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Point McIntyre PA expansion approved Participating area expanded to north, southeast by some 3,000 acres; West Beach PA and Prudhoe Bay unit contracted by 240 acres Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas has approved an expansion of the Point McIntyre participating area and related contractions of the West Beach participating area and the Prudhoe Bay unit.
In a Sept. 30 decision, the division said the Point McIntyre PA is expanded by some 2,967 acres. The West Beach PA is simultaneously contracted by some 240 acres; those 240 acres are automatically contracted out of the Prudhoe Bay unit as they are no longer within a participating area.
The Point McIntyre field lies onshore and offshore on Alaska’s North Slope and is part of the Prudhoe Bay unit.
BP Exploration (Alaska), operator of the Prudhoe Bay unit, applied for a unit expansion in March 2009; the division conditionally approved the expansion in June 2009. BP drilled the P2-22A well in March and April 2010, meeting the conditions of the 2009 expansion, and submitted an application to expand the Point McIntyre PA and contract the West Beach PA in February 2011.
Both the Point McIntyre and West Beach produce from the Cretaceous Kuparuk River formation, although from separate accumulations. The division said the West Beach PA is currently shut-in.
BP initially applied to expand the Point McIntyre PA by some 3,988 acres, but subsequently agreed to the smaller expansion of 2,967 acres because that covered the area “reasonably estimated through the use of geological, geophysical, or engineering data to be capable of producing or contributing to the production of hydrocarbon in paying quantities.”
Area wells There are two wells in the expansion areas, the larger to the north of the original PA and the smaller to the southeast. The P2-22A and P2-22APB1 wells, in the north expansion area, are sidetracks which began production in May 2010.
The P2-45B well, drilled in 2008 inside the Point McIntyre PA, established production at the southeastern limit of the current PA, and the division said its “production rates are an indicator that good quality reservoir rock extends into acreage outside of the current PA, and that production from the P2-45B well is capturing moveable hydrocarbons from outside the existing PMPA within the proposed Southeast Expansion Area.”
A portion of the proposed southeast expansion area lies within the West Beach PA. The division said the area proposed for contraction from the West Beach PA (and from the Prudhoe Bay unit) does not contain the West Beach reservoir.
The division said that more than 100 wells have been drilled within the Kuparuk reservoir at Point McIntyre; Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission data show 48 completions were producing in August.
Sustained production from the Point McIntyre PA began in October 1993.
Original oil in place at Point McIntyre was estimated in 1994 to be 777 million barrels. The current estimate, 913 million barrels of OOIP, is based on additional information from drilling and production results. The proposed Point McIntyre PA expansion areas account for 38 million barrels of the increase, the division said, with the remaining 98 million barrels “due to an improved understanding of OOIP within the original PMPA boundaries.”
AOGCC production records show that, through August, Point McIntyre had produced more than 434 million barrels.
Well P2-22A had cumulative production of 77,158 barrels through the end of May 2011.
Well P2-45B, drilled some 22 feet from the boundary of the southern expansion area, and believed to be draining acreage in the expansion area, began producing in April 2008 and had produced 487,998 barrels through the end of May.
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