ConocoPhillips considering Bear Tooth program winter of 2018-19

Eric Lidji

for Petroleum News

ConocoPhillips is considering an exploration program at the Bear Tooth unit this winter.

The company plans to drill as many as three exploration wells at the federal unit during the upcoming winter exploration season, according to a continuing development obligation plan submitted to the U. S. Bureau of Land Management earlier this year.

A “continuing development obligation plan” is the federal equivalent of the “plan of development” that the Alaska Department of Natural Resources requires for state units.

Although no names or locations for the wells were provided in the plan, ConocoPhillips said that two of the three wells would be located within proposed expansion acreage at Bear Tooth, which the Bureau of Land Management had yet to approve in February.

ConocoPhillips is also planning to re-enter and test the Tinmiaq No. 6 well, which helped form the basis of the major Willow oil discovery at the Greater Mooses Tooth unit.

The connection between the re-entry and the new wells appears to be a sense that the Willow structure extends to the north of Greater Mooses Tooth, into the Bear Tooth unit.

In 2017, the company integrated its previous Cassin 3-D seismic program into its evaluation of the Willow prospect. “Additional newly reprocessed data was interpreted along with the existing Cassin 3D seismic data and this data was used to evaluate both Cassin and the northern extension of the Willow structure,” the company wrote.

- ERIC LIDJI