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Conoco moves ahead with Meltwater shut-in
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
When it filed plans of development in June for the five Kuparuk River unit participating areas, operator ConocoPhillips Alaska told the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas that it planned to shut-in the Meltwater participating area, drill site 2P, this year. Meltwater is a non-contiguous PA, lying south, southwest of the unit.
The company cited low production at Meltwater, an average of some 300 barrels per day in 2020, and back-out issues at Central Processing Facility 2 which were estimated to cost some 600 bpd of production due to water cycling requirements to keep the Meltwater crude oil pipeline warm.
On July 30 the division approved suspension of operations at Meltwater, DS-2P.
ConocoPhillips, the division said, sought “authorization to plug and abandon 19 wells and suspend surface activities of surface infrastructure” at DS-2P. The company said in its POD that 16 of those wells were active, nine producers and seven injectors.
The plugging and abandonment will be to Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission standards and regulations, the division said. Surface lines on the pad and the 24-inch produced oil line running from DS-2P to DS-2N, will be blinded, or blocked off. The division said this “will include pigging and may include multiple chemical injections into the lines to ensure the lines are cleared.”
Surface infrastructure such as wellhouses, wellheads, chokes, valves, the corrosion injection skid and the well-test equipment at DS-2P may be repurposed at other drill sites, the division said.
In its June POD filing the company said detailed plans underway for the shut-in included a timeline for plugging and abandoning the wells, “possible movement of pigging equipment currently installed at DS2P, suspension of the surface kit with inert gas blankets were appropriate, potential reuse of certain surface kit elsewhere in the Unit, and potential to use DS2P gravel and pipelines for other developments.”
The division said plan activities include:
*Plugging and abandoning the 19 wells.
*Blinding the DS-2P surface lines.
*Blinding the 24-inch produced oil line that runs to DS-2N.
*And repurposing DS-2P infrastructure.
Discovered in 2000 The Meltwater accumulation was discovered by exploratory drilling in 2000 some 9 miles south of the existing Tarn oil pool, ConocoPhillips said in its 2018 Kuparuk unit plan of development.
Development at Meltwater began in 2001 and was completed in 2004, the company said, after two phases of development drilling.
Production began in November 2001 and the most recent AOGCC production data, for June, shows cumulative crude oil production from Meltwater of 20.3 million barrels.
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