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Hilcorp requests AOGCC hearing
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission said Sept. 1 that Hilcorp Alaska has requested a hearing to discuss the commission’s denial of a request by the company to use a 60/40 blend of methanol and water and/or a brine solution to test the BOPE, blowout prevention equipment, on the Thunderbird Rig 1.
The Thunderbird is a workover rig being used on the North Slope.
The commission has scheduled the hearing for Oct. 13 at 10 a.m. in its Anchorage offices and said that while the hearing will be held in person, the public may participate remotely via MS Teams, and to do so, needs to contact the commission’s executive secretary, Samantha Carlisle, at [email protected] at least two business days before the scheduled hearing.
Issue testing fluid The commission only allows water to be used in BOPE testing.
In email correspondence on the issue, Hilcorp asaid it has requested the use of 60/40 MEOH/water or 9.8 ppg brine rather than fresh water as BOPE test fluid.
Hilcorp said it is worried about water freezing during BOPE operations. While the Thunderbird will only be operated from about April through October, weather permitting, the company said, it is not a fully enclosed winterized rig.
The company said that during normal operations fluids are moving between areas where heat can be added but during BOPE testing, fluid lines do not benefit from the heat sources which keep fluids from freezing during normal operations.
The company said the commission’s regulations cite a specific edition of API Standards or Recommended Practices which are superseded by current API Standards or Recommended Practices. The edition of API referenced in AOGCC regulations is the 1997 edition, Hilcorp said, whereas the latest version is 2018.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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