ConocoPhillips gets OK on Colville projects

State of Alaska approves CRU unit amendments to install temporary camp on Kuukpik pad and erect drilling support office on CD1 pad

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

On Dec. 9 and Dec. 10 Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas approved Colville River unit plan of operations amendments allowing operator ConocoPhillips to install a temporary camp on the Kuukpik pad and erect a permanent drilling support office on Colville Delta No. 1 pad, or CD1 pad. The new infrastructure will support western North Slope oil and gas operations and activities with work on both projects beginning soon.

The personnel camp and its supporting infrastructure will be used for less than 12 months, with all the work performed on the Kuukpik pad, which is in the North Slope Brough Resource Development District on surface land owned by Kuukpik Corp. Work will begin on Jan. 15.

The camp and its infrastructure will support activities at CD1, CD2, CD3, CD4 and CD5 pads and consist of “multiple modules, including personnel camps, offices, water modules, waste modules, connector modules, control modules, smoke shacks, rec/lounge module, facilities, connexes, equipment shops and storage facilities,” per ConocoPhillips’ Dec. 4 application. Generators and supporting diesel fuel tanks will also be located within a generator module in the vicinity of the camp. Both the generator modules and the waste/water tank modules will be placed in secondary containment.

Erection of the drilling office on the CD1 pad, which was applied for on Nov. 20, is scheduled to start immediately and be completed by March 31. It will remain on the pad until the end of field life.

The office will be placed on a timber foundation and power connected by trenching to the Remote Electronic Instrumentation Module, or REIM, in the nearby Titan Tent.

The trench to install the electrical cables will measure approximately four feet in width, five feet in depth, and 150 feet in length. The materials excavated from the trench will be used as backfill after the electrical cables are installed. Stairs, walkways, mobile bull rails, and jersey barriers will also be installed as part of the project.

CD1 is approximately eight miles north of Nuiqsut on a state of Alaska lease.

Drilling activities planned

The following activities are planned:

* Start up Doyon Rig 25 before year end 2020 to resume the drilling that was halted at CD5 in April due to COVID-19.

* To begin 2021, Doyon 25 will move from CD5 to drill at GMT2. “We will start drilling there in the first half of 2021 with first oil planned in the fourth quarter. GMT2 will require an additional 35 miles of ice roads, 100-acre ice pad, and a 3-acre multi-season ice pad which will be built starting in January,” Marushack said.

* A 25-day turnaround at Alpine in July 2021 “which will allow us to execute the Alpine Brownfield expansion projects that include the Slug Catcher, Gas Expansion and Power Expansion.”

* In the second half of 2021, commission and start-up the new build extended reach drilling rig, Doyon 26 (also known as the Beast), which will begin drilling the Fiord West field from the Alpine CD2 drill site.

* Also, in the second half of 2021, drilling in the Kuparuk River unit will restart. “We are planning on bringing a coiled tubing drilling rig back to the field, as well as a rotary rig workover program.”

Marushack also said Prudhoe Bay unit activity “is dependent on reaching a consensus with the major working interest owners. That discussion is still under way.”

More on Fiord West

Other drilling rigs do not have the capability to access Fiord West without building a new gravel pad, additional pipelines and more roads, which would increase the development footprint in an environmentally sensitive area.

About 65 Doyon employees will work on Rig 26. Workers will also be needed for camps, transport and other oilfield support services, ConocoPhillips said.