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AOGCC amends pool rules for conformity
Changes requested by BP for Greater Point McIntyre Area rules will promote operational efficiency, simplify commission’s oversight Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
In an April 3 ruling, the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission approved requests by BP Exploration (Alaska) for amendments to pool rules at oil pools in the Greater Point McIntyre Area on the North Slope.
BP requested the changes on Feb. 20, citing making operations more efficient and simplifying compliance oversight for AOGCC.
The requests cover well spacing requirements, pressure survey requirements and well testing for a number of oil pools in the Greater Point McIntyre Area: Lisburne, West Beach, Point McIntyre, Niakuk, Raven and North Prudhoe Bay. The commission said there were also requested changes which applied only to the Lisburne oil pool or the Point McIntyre oil pool.
Well spacing The Lisburne, West Beach, Point McIntyre, Niakuk and Raven oil pools had different spacing requirements: one well per quarter section at Lisburne with no pay opened within 1,000 feet of another well; one well per 160 acres at West Beach until circumstances warranted AOGCC changing that requirement; one well per 40 acres at Point McIntyre with no pay open within 500 feet of another well; at Niakuk the AOGCC could approve any well at least 500 feet from the area boundary without open pay within 1,000 feet of another well; and one well per 20 acres at Raven with no pay open within 500 feet of the area external boundary.
BP requested that interwell spacing be eliminated and the only requirement be a 500-foot offset from property lines where the landowner is not the same on both sides of the line.
“At the time the spacing requirements in these pool rules were imposed wells were being drilled nearly vertically,” the commission said in its ruling. With modern horizontal and multilateral wells, flexibility was needed to drill as dictated by geology and reservoir models, AOGCC said, and standardization of spacing requirements would improve recovery while protecting correlative rights.
The commission amended conservation orders for all the named pool rules to read:
“There shall be no restrictions to well spacing within the affected area except that no pay may be opened in a well which is closer than 500 feet of an external property line where the owners and landowners are not the same on both sides of the line.”
Pressure surveys Requirements on frequency of pressure tests and when they were required to be submitted varied across the Lisburne, West Beach, Point McIntyre, Niakuk, North Prudhoe Bay and Raven oil pools.
The commission said BP requested “that the pressure survey requirements be modified so that compliance with regulatory oversight becomes simpler and data is collected in a meaningful manner.”
“The inconsistency in where pressure surveys need to be collected and how the results are to be reported makes it more difficult for the operator to stay in compliance without yielding any benefit that could not be obtained by more uniform collection and reporting requirements,” the commission said in summarizing BP’s request.
There have been decades of development and reporting and the Prudhoe Bay unit pools (the Greater Point McIntyre Area is part of the Prudhoe Bay unit) are well understood and have sophisticated reservoir models, the commission said. BP recommended targeted pressure surveys be included in the annual reservoir surveillance reports, which would be consistent with how other pools at Prudhoe are managed.
The commission amended pool rules for the affected fields to require annual submittal of pressure surveillance in conjunction with annual reservoir surveillance reports.
The commission said that in addition to requested changes applying across pools, BP made a number of requests which applied only to a single pool, including gas oil ratio testing requirements at Lisburne, water injection limits at the Lisburne gas cap water injection project and an enhanced oil recovery project report for the Point McIntyre oil pool.
All requested amendments were approved.
Pool specific The commission said the existing rules allowed it to make administrative amendments if the proposed changes did not promote waste or jeopardize correlative rights, were based on sound engineering and geoscience and did not increase risk of fluid movement into freshwater.
All of BP’s requested changes comply with those requirements, the commission said.
Consolidating rules across the Greater Point McIntyre Area pools and the changes to the Lisburne and Point McIntyre pool rules will simplify operations for BP, “make uniform the compliance requirements, and will not impact ultimate recovery. Eliminating interwell spacing requirements, while maintaining a minimum offset distance from property lines where ownership changes, will maximize ultimate recovery while also protecting correlative rights,” the commission said.
AOGCC also said it is revising the rules, where necessary, for consistency with the language it currently uses.
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