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Accumulate files operations plan for Hickory 1 exploration well
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Accumulate Energy has filed a lease plan of operations for its proposal to drill the Hickory 1 exploration well, “part of a multi-year program,” the company said in the application, filed Nov. 16 with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas.
(See map and schematic in online issue PDF)
The company operates in Alaska as 88 Energy. It said in a Dec. 7 release that it had executed a rig contract with Nordic-Calista LLC for the use of Nordic Rig 2 to drill the Hickory 1 exploration well. Fairweather LLC is the project manager for the well.
In a public notice for the lease plan of operations, posted Dec. 9, the division said comments for the proposal are due by 4:30 p.m. Jan. 9.
The division said the well will be drilled on lease ADL 392314 from a temporary ice pad some 400 feet west of the Dalton Highway, 30 miles south of Deadhorse.
The division said mobilization of the drilling rig, camp and support facilities is scheduled for January.
Ice pad Accumulate Energy Alaska, AEA, said in its application that the well would be drilled from a temporary 600-foot by 600-foot ice pad connected to the Dalton Highway by a 500-foot ice road - a combined area of some 8.66 acres.
Pre-packing of ice road alignments and pad location were proposed to begin Dec. 10, with construction of the ice pad and ice road to begin Jan. 1, followed by mobilization of the rig, camp and support operations Jan. 15 with drilling and evaluation to begin Feb. 15. Demobilizing the drill rig, camp and support operations is scheduled to begin March 30 and continue through April 30.
Drilling AEA said the well plan for Hickory 1 “is derived from relevant drilling and geological data obtained from seismic data, as well as from historical offset wells in the surrounding area.”
Drilling will begin once rig-up operations are completed and the company has obtained necessary approvals. The well will be drilled to 13,000 feet measured depth/total vertical depth, a “vertical wellbore through various hydrocarbon zones of interest, with the deepest zone being the Kuparuk sands.”
Formations will be logged and evaluated with measurement while drilling and logging while drilling, with wireline logs to back up the MWD and LWD tools and specialized logging tools used to evaluate specific zones in the open hole intervals.
The company said sidewall cores may be taken in specific zones of interest.
The target spud date is Feb. 15, which should allow for completion, with “full penetration of all hydrocarbon zones in the well” by late March.
The well will be drilled from ADL 392314, a lease bisected by the trans-Alaska oil pipeline on the northern edge of Accumulate’s proposed Toolik River unit - see story on the unit application in the Dec. 11 issue of Petroleum News.
Immediately north of the Accumulate acreage Great Bear Pantheon has two units, Alkad and Talitha. Great Bear Pantheon has a long-term production test underway at its Alkaid 2 exploration well and plans to spud the Talitha B exploration well in January.
The Accumulate Hickory 1 is in an area the company has previously called Icewine East but has renamed Project Phoenix, a change the company attributed to a changed exploration strategy.
88 Energy said in September that Hickory 1 will test reservoirs in the Shelf Margin Delta, Slope Fan System, Basin Floor Fan and Kuparuk.
Hickory 1 will be plugged and abandoned at the end of the project per Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission requirements. Equipment and structures will be removed at the end of the season.
Equipment When it announced its rig contract with Nordic-Calista for the Nordic Rig 2 in early December, 88 Energy said Nordic Rig 2 is a single module, self-propelled rig. The company said the single module design eliminates extended rig up/down time, providing significant efficiencies during the winter exploration season.
A description of Nordic-Calista Camp 2 was included with the lease plan of operations application.
There are 16 double rooms, allowing the camp to handle 32 people, and three single rooms, for a total capacity of 35 people. The camp has an integrated 350-ton trailer and is highly mobile, capable of a 30-mile move in 24 hours. The galley capacity is 40, with seating for 18. There are television and satellite receivers in dining, conference and recreation areas, plus each bedroom. The camp is powered by two Caterpillar 3456 generators, a main and a backup. The camp has fuel consumption of some 250-300 gallons per day and is capable of accepting high line power.
The heavy equipment list for the project includes two Tucker snow cats with portable ice auger drills; a caterpillar motor grader; four Caterpillar 966 loaders; two loader mounted snow blowers and ice trimmers; a Caterpillar D-6 dozer; six dump trailers and Cat hard tail end dumps; eight crew buses, vans and pickups; three tractor/325-barrel vacuum trucks; three super suckers; 130-barrel conventional tanker trucks and 200-barrel water buffaloes, three; a mechanic field service trucks; and a 5,000-gallon fuel tanker truck.
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