Hilcorp plans new well at West Fork field

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Hilcorp Alaska has permitted a development gas well, WFK-04, at the West Fork gas field and applied to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for changes in the conservation order governing the field.

If successful, this well would bring an old gas field back online.

Natural gas was discovered at the West Fork field on the Kenai Peninsula by Halbouty Alaska Oil Co. in 1960 at the West Fork No. 1-B well. Three dry hole offset wells followed -- the SOCAL West Fork 233-16 and the Union Sterling Unit 48-28, both drilled in 1962, and the Halasko West Fork 42-10 drilled in 1967.

The field produced from 1978-1985, 1991-1995, 2005-2009 and 2013-15. AOGCC production data show cumulative production of 5,974,254 thousand cubic feet.

The West Fork field is east of Kenai north of the Sterling Highway.

Hilcorp is the working interest owner. Landowners are Cook Inlet Region Inc. and the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management.

The drilling permit, issued Jan. 15, is for a development gas well in the West Fork gas field to the undefined Sterling and Tyonek gas pools with a measured depth of 9,918 feet and a true vertical depth of 9,421 feet. Jan. 29 was the proposed spud date.

In its application to AOGCC to amend pool rules for the West Fork gas field Hilcorp asked for administrative approval for a change and told the commission it was "targeting undefined reservoir(s)" not subject to the existing pool rules, but said should it find commercial quantities of gas it would be "prevented from producing them without obtaining regulatory exception." The company said existing boundary setback restricts production of the West Fork gas pools "which would diminish ultimate recovery and leads to economic and physical waste."

The company asked for pool rule changes for modernization and for consistency with rules for the Kenai gas fields.

The commission granted administrative approval for the pool rule change and said the 320-acre spacing exception was unnecessary. The rule Hilcorp requested to be changed "doesn't need to be amended but instead can be repealed. Property line setback requirements will thus be controlled by regulation, making a specific rule unnecessary."

--KRISTEN NELSON