Armstrong extols new oil play

Bill Armstrong, CEO of Armstrong Energy, has weighed in on the ramifications of ConocoPhillips’ newly announced Willow oil discovery in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. On Jan. 13 ConocoPhillips announced that Willow, a discovery in the Nanushuk formation, may be capable of delivering oil at a rate as much as 100,000 barrels per day.

Armstrong, with its partner Repsol E&P USA, is planning a major oil development in its Pikka unit on the east side of the Colville River delta, with the Nanushuk hosting a substantial portion of the oil. Armstrong sees exact parallels between the Willow and Pikka oil pools and thinks that these finds could mark the beginning of a new and productive direction for North Slope exploration and development.

“We are really excited about what we have found at Pikka and for what ConocoPhillips has found at Willow,” Armstrong has told Petroleum News. “Both discoveries are big and may get a lot bigger. Pikka and Willow could be the first of many as they have revealed a new play type for the North Slope that should have lots of running room.”

U.S. Geological Survey geologist David Houseknecht has previously suggested that the Armstrong development represents a new North Slope oil play involving rocks of the Brookian sequence, the shallowest and youngest rock sequence in the North Slope petroleum systems. The play involves oil reservoirs in the Nanushuk and Torok formations. Caelus Energy’s recent major discovery at Smith Bay, with a reservoir in the Torok, also fits into the play.

Houseknecht thinks that the play runs west from the Colville River delta area, along the Barrow Arch, a major geologic structure associated with North Slope oil fields. Oil, in some cases sourced from deep under the nearshore waters of the Beaufort Sea, would flow up the flanks of the arch and be caught in stratigraphic traps in the Brookian.

- ALAN BAILEY