AOGCC permits Paxton 12 at Ninilchik

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has approved a spacing exception for and issued a drilling permit for the Paxton 12 development gas well in the Ninilchik unit.

Hilcorp Alaska, the unit operator, received an approval March 6 from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas for an amendment to its Ninilchik unit plan of development for Paxton 12, Pearl 10 and Pearl 11. The division said Hilcorp planned to spud the first well around March 1.

The commission approved the spacing exception and issued the drilling permit for Paxton 12 on March 15.

In approving the spacing exception the commission said Paxton 12 targets unproved Beluga and Tyonek formation reserves in the Pearl undefined gas pool and in the Ninilchik Beluga/Tyonek pool. It said the drilling objectives cannot be reached by conforming to statewide spacing exception regulations “because of the narrow, discontinuous, and lenticular nature of the reservoir sands and their most prospective locations on the subsurface structure.”

Hilcorp received permission to expand the Pearl pad from the division in early March, following approval last August to expand the Paxton pad. The pads are at the southern end of the Ninilchik unit on the Kenai Peninsula.

- KRISTEN NELSON