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State gives final approval to Three Mile Creek unit
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief
The Alaska Division of Oil and Gas has given final approval to the 8,080-acre Three Mile Creek unit it conditionally approved in January.
The findings and decision of the director, issued March 26, note that unit operator Aurora Gas LLC and partner Forest Oil Corp. submitted the modified agreements required by the conditional approval, and Aurora submitted revised exhibits.
The unit became effective Jan. 31, and the findings and decision provide the division’s evaluation of the unit application. The unit is in the Cook Inlet basin, onshore the west side of Cook Inlet, approximately nine miles west of the mouth of the Beluga River and northwest of the Beluga River unit.
The division said the regional fault and anticlinal trend forming the structural basis of the Three Mile Creek unit were included on Cook Inlet geology maps in the 1960s and 1970s. The main structural feature in the unit area is the Bruin Bay fault; the Moquawkie anticline is adjacent to and east of the Bruin Bay fault. The division said Aurora “identified two structural highs along the anticline” in the Three Mile Creek unit area, the Three Mile Creek prospect to the south and the Olson Creek prospect to the north, “separated by a structural saddle.”
The division said Aurora’s first objective in its initial plan of exploration is to “delineate and test gas sands in the Beluga formation above 4,300 feet true vertical depth” in the prospect areas.
The Beluga formation produced gas at the Beluga River, Swanson River, Cannery Loop, Kenai, Lewis River, Nicolai Creek, North Cook Inlet, Stump Lake, Beaver Creek and Theodore River fields.
The division said the industry recognized the Three Mile Creek anticlinal trend as a potential exploration target by the mid-1960s, and used surface mapping tools to identify major structures and then mapped the subsurface with seismic, gravity and magnetic geophysical instruments and other tools. As a result, several vintages of seismic are available over the area and wells were drilled in the area of the unit, beginning in the early 1960s. The division said the 1962 Beluga River No. 1 well (now known as the Beluga River Unit No. 212-35) in the Beluga River unit east of Three Mile Creek contains more than 100 feet of net pay and has an average porosity of 24 percent.
The three-year plan of exploration for the Three Mile Creek unit includes two exploration wells and new seismic, with the first well to be drilled and not less than 27 line miles of seismic to be acquired by Jan. 31, 2006. The second well must be drilled by Jan. 31, 2007.
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