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NPR-A into third decade since discoveries ConocoPhillips reviews exploration/development history in GMT plan to BLM in October; most recent Bear Tooth plan dated this March Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
After beginning exploration drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in 2000, ConocoPhillips Alaska has one unit, Greater Mooses Tooth, in production, and a second, Bear Tooth, in development.
The company’s most recent plan update for its work in NPR-A, submitted to the Bureau of Land Management March 1, describes current plans for the Bear Tooth unit, where it is developing the Willow accumulation. The Bear Tooth Unit was approved in 2009. Bear Tooth, along with the Greater Mooses Tooth unit, approved in 2008, are the active BLM-managed units in NPR-A. ConocoPhillips holds 168 NPR-A tracts, 1,103,540 acres, according to BLM records current as of June.
Bear Tooth plan ConocoPhillips told BLM that under the previous continuing development obligation plan, CDO plan, it constructed ice roads and completed the Tinmiaq 20 and Tinmiaq 18 appraisal wells during the 2019-20 winter drilling season. The company said it had planned to drill up to two additional wells, but “due to the extenuating circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic,” it suspended drilling operations in March 2020.
The company said it continued to advance Willow project permitting during 2020, receiving “key project approvals” including the BLM Willow Master Development Plan Record of Decision, the BLM right-of-way grant, BLM permits to drill on leases AA081807, AA081808 and AA081787, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Record of Decision and Department of the Army permit POA-2008-00190 and North Slope Borough Willow Project Master Plan and Rezone Approval.
ConocoPhillips said it and BLM also executed a material sales contract for gravel from the Willow mine site.
Based on those authorizations, the company said, it mobilized the camps and personnel needed for Willow construction and began building ice roads and pads, 4.47 miles of ice roads and 0.39 acres of ice pads.
Then lawsuits were filed challenging the BLM and U.S. Fish and Wildlife permitting process, eventually resulting in a preliminary injunction preventing gravel mining and gravel road construction from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals “during the pendency of the appeal.”
That injunction has caused the company to miss the ice road season and it won’t be able to begin gravel work until the 2022 ice road season, “assuming favorable litigation status by that time.”
ConocoPhillips said the injunction cost it “several million dollars” because it mobilized camps and personnel that were not used, made non-refundable contractual commitments and paid for ice roads and pads to be constructed, which were never used.
ConocoPhillips told BLM it does not believe that further appraisal drilling is required for Willow and said it had hoped to be in construction by the date of the plan, March 2021. “The lawsuits challenging federal permits now present considerable uncertainty as to whether construction will be permitted to commence in the next ice road season.”
The company said that should it be authorized to begin work next near, it would then seek any additional permits necessary.
Greater Mooses Tooth The most recent CDO plan for Greater Mooses Tooth, submitted last October, provides a summary of work to date in NPR-A, illustrating the lengthy timeline for development, with exploration wells drilled in 2000 through 2004, followed by BLM approval of an Alpine Satellite development plan in 2004, which included GMT1 and GMT2, formerly called CD6 and CD7.
Alpine satellites came online at CD3 and CD4 in 2006; CD5 was delayed by permit denial, but finally came online in 2015.
Additional NPR-A exploration wells were drilled in 2008, 2009 and 2014, followed by the first Tinmiaq wells in 2016.
A record of decision for Greater Mooses Tooth 1 was received in 2015, with 80 square miles of Lookout 3D seismic shot that same year, followed by 470 square miles of 3D at GMT2 and Willow in 2017, also the first winter season of GMT1 construction.
2018 saw the startup at GMT1 Oct. 5, following Lookout participating area approval in March of that year.
In 2019, merged processing began for 810 square miles of seismic, and a geologic, geophysical and reservoir engineering, GGRE, model was updated with new processed data. Drilling continued at GMT1, and road and pad gravel work at GMT2 were completed.
2020 saw additional work on the 810 square miles of seismic, and the GGRE model was updated with newly processed data. Gravel work was completed at GMT2.
ConocoPhillips said the seismic data set covers 88% of Greater Mooses Tooth and is being used to update GGRE models to evaluate future opportunities in the unit, “including models for GMT1, GMT2, Spark, Exploration leads and other prospects within GMTU.”
For 2020-21, at the Lookout GMT1 development, ConocoPhillips said it will continue the water alternating gas injection program, with further development planning to be evaluated with the revised GMT1 GGRE model and field performance data.
GMT1 production averaged some 2,500 barrels per day in June, the latest month for which Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission data is available, down from a peak of more than 12,000 bpd in early 2019.
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