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Eni going for oil
Drilling picks up at Nikaitchuq, NN-02 exploratory well in works for winter
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
Eni US Operating Co.’s plans for its North Slope assets are still evolving, but definitely moving forward, as expected.
The U.S. subsidiary of the Milan-based major now owns 100% of two oil producing units between Prudhoe Bay and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, as well as 350,000 undeveloped acres to the east between Prudhoe and Point Thomson.
According to a reliable Petroleum News source, Eni plans to drill one, possibly two injector wells in its nearshore Nikaitchuq unit prior to finishing drilling and then testing its offshore Nikaitchuq North exploration well, NN-01, in early 2020.
NN-01, the longest extended reach well of its type in Alaska at an expected measured depth of approximately 35,000 feet, will also likely be sidetracked as NN-02.
In its 11th Nikaitchuq plan of development, which runs through September and was approved by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Eni was looking at converting eight existing wells into multilaterals.
Per PN’s source, Eni plans multilateral drilling after finishing NN-01 and drilling NN-02. Not all eight wells will necessarily get converted to multilaterals because Eni will wait to first evaluate the results of the first two.
The company is also tentatively planning to do some new drilling in the Oooguruk unit in 2020, where it assumed operatorship on Aug. 1. (The Oooguruk plan of development for 2020 is due Dec. 1.)
Finally, in 2018 when Eni acquired the 350,000 acres in 124 leases on the eastern North Slope, the company said it planned to “apply its business model and experience,” involving “fast-track exploration” and “a short time to market” for the “potential new discoveries.”
The next step, per PN’s source, is seismic-related work. It must be completed before the drilling of an exploration well can be approved and budgeted for 2020-21.
First goal 30,000 bpd After announcing it had acquired 100% ownership and would eventually be taking over operatorship of the Oooguruk unit, Eni said it planned to drill more production wells at both Oooguruk and its nearby Nikaitchuq unit, with an initial target to increase its total Alaska oil production to more than 30,000 barrels per day.
Although new drilling is not yet taking place in Oooguruk, the company is doing some drilling in its Nikaitchuq unit.
In May, Oooguruk unit output averaged 9,293 bpd, with Nikaitchuq coming in at 16,640 bpd, a total of 25,933 barrels.
The Nikaitchuq unit, which began producing oil in early 2011, lies north of the Kuparuk River unit and northeast of the adjacent Oooguruk unit that came online in 2008.
Wildcat drilling After an 11-year hiatus Eni returned to explore in Alaska in late December 2017 with the spudding of the first of two ultra-extended reach wells north from Spy Island, a man-made Beaufort Sea island in the Nikaitchuq unit.
The exploration program was expected to take two years. Due to a series of delays, drilling was still not able to be finished this past winter.
In a May 2018 strategy meeting Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said the company was doing well in Alaska and planned to increase investment in the state; a statement that proved true.
The current plan approved by DNR’s Division of Oil and Gas and BOEM said the drilling of the second exploration well, NN-02, “targeting the same seismic anomaly of the first well” was contingent upon NN-01 results.
The anomaly identified from 3D seismic shot over Nikaitchuq North was not identified in the company’s approved plan. The Schrader Bluff formation that is produced from the Nikaitchuq unit is known to extend a long way north under the Beaufort Sea, but, there were some hints in Eni’s Oil Discharge Prevention and Contingency Plan application that appear to be based on tapping the Jurassic Alpine sands, which would certainly qualify as an anomaly in the area.
Whatever the case, the 25,957 bpd in the contingency plan application could not be referring to the heavy Schrader Bluff oil that can’t flow unassisted.
Also, this and the measured depth and angle of the well suggest one of the Jurassic sands.
The previous Nikaitchuq unit operator, Kerr-McGee, talked about the possibility of testing the Jurassic Nuiqsut sandstone to the north.
Expanding east When Eni announced it had acquired 350,000 undeveloped exploration acres in two blocks on the eastern North Slope from Caelus Natural Resources, the company said the acreage was relatively unexplored but close to infrastructure, including the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
Shortly after acquiring the leases in 2015, Caelus attained 175 square miles of new 3D seismic data and reprocessed another 275 square miles of existing 3D to image prospects in the acreage - data now held by Eni.
“Adjacent infrastructure with available capacity reduces threshold volumes required for developing discoveries in the sub-100 million barrels of oil recoverable range,” Caelus said in 2015. “Multiple play types within proven stratigraphic horizons provide significant upside potential in previously poorly-imaged structural trends and/or subtle stratigraphic traps.”
Surrounding legacy wells “confirm deeper petroleum system elements and de-risked shallower Brookian reservoirs and hydrocarbon charge and phase within the area,” Caelus said, much of which was mostly ignored in North Slope drilling until Armstrong and Repsol discovered major oil finds in the Brookian Nanushuk at Pikka and Horseshoe west of the central North Slope.
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