State to contract Colville River unit

The state Division of Oil and Gas is asking ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. to submit updated maps reflecting a mandatory contraction of the Colville River unit on the North Slope.

The contraction was built into the Colville River Unit Agreement in 1998. It gave the state the ability to remove acreage from the unit after 10 years of sustained production from the initial participating area, which began in 2000. In 2010, the state agreed to delay the contraction of 18,045 acres in the east of the unit if ConocoPhillips drilled a well in the contraction area by January 2011 and segregated certain leases by April 30, 2010.

By meeting the drilling commitment, ConocoPhillips was able to hang onto the contractions acreage until Feb. 15, 2014, which was deadline for providing information to support a larger planned redetermination of the Alpine participating area at the unit.

Under the unit agreement, any portion of a lease outside the Alpine participating area will remain in the unit as long as production from the lease is allocated to the unitized portion.

The updated maps are meant to reflect that condition.

- Eric Lidji