Pikka and nearby oil discoveries together could rival Kuparuk

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

Yereth Rosen's recent article in the Alaska Beacon about two speakers at the March 22 Meet Alaska conference carried highlights from Santos about its plans for the future that are worth highlighting.

The speech by Connor Dunn, a senior vice president with ConocoPhillips Alaska who oversees the Willow project, was covered by Petroleum News' Steve Sutherlin in a separate article in this issue.

Mark Ireland, senior vice president for subsurface and exploration at Santos, the company that is developing the huge Pikka project west of the central North Slope, said the first and second phase of Pikka, plus other oil discovered nearby represent more than 1.5 billion barrels of known oil and could eventually rival Kuparuk, the second largest oil field on the North Slope.

"When we add in our annual exploration appraisal program, I think in a few years in the future, we'll be looking at north of 2, 3 billion barrels of development in front of us. And that's where we get to the scale of a Kuparuk," he said.

"We're seeing levels of activity that we haven't seen for a decade or so, with more to come," said Ireland, whose North Slope experience includes Western North Slope development manager for ConocoPhillips Alaska dating back almost 25 years. He was picked up in 2019 by Oil Search prior to its acquisition by Santos.

--Kay Cashman