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Frack bumps Nikolaevsk production; four-fold increase only temporary
Eric Lidji for Petroleum News
After years of steadily declining Nikolaevsk unit production, Hilcorp reported a significant increase in production last year as the result of a fracture stimulation effort.
The company credited its fracture stimulation of the Red No. 1 well in March 2017 with increasing natural gas production to 600,000 cubic feet per day in 2017, up from 154,000 cubic feet per day in 2016, according to a plan of development submitted in May 2018.
The benefits of the workover operation were short lived. Red No. 1 produced 232,000 cubic feet per day before the operation and 2.3 million cubic feet per day immediately following it. But production had fallen to 850,000 cubic feet per day by June 2017 and then to “pre-stimulation levels,” climbing to 540,000 cubic feet day by March 2018.
Prior to conducting the operation, Hilcorp had estimated that the fracture stimulation would add between 1 million to 3 million cubic feet per day from the Tyonek formation.
Hilcorp generally produces at the Nikolaevsk unit intermittently during winter months and during periods of low market demand, which might explain the bump in early 2018.
In its new plan of development, running through July 2019, Hilcorp did not propose any drilling or workover projects at the Nikolaevsk unit. The state has yet to approve the plan.
Previous attempts After partnering with the Enstar affiliate Alaska Pipeline Co. on a 10-mile pipeline connecting the field to the nearby Anchor Point Pipeline, Hilcorp brought the Nikolaevsk unit online in December 2012 from the Red No. 1 well at 5 million cubic feet per day.
Nikolaevsk production had fallen to 2.5 million cubic feet per day by the start of 2013 and to 796,000 cubic feet per day by the end of the year. The company suspended production from April to October 2013 in response to seasonal demand restrictions.
Even with a compressor installed in early 2014, production fell from 1.1 million cubic feet per day in early 2014 to 300,000 cubic feet per day in late 2014. The company suspended production from November 2014 through February 2015 due to seasonal demand.
Union Oil Company of California announced a discovery at the Nikolaevsk unit in 2004 but never developed the field because of its distance from the regional transmission grid.
The company proposed plans in 2009 to drill at two Nikolaevsk prospects - the existing Red prospect and a nearby Blue prospect. The company ultimately relinquished the Blue prospect and blamed market conditions on its inability to farm-out the Red prospect.
A plan in early 2011 to study a potential pipeline to the North Fork unit soon became moot when Unocal Oil Company of California sold its Cook Inlet portfolio to Hilcorp.
- ERIC LIDJI
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