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Commission approves North Fork pool rules
KRISTEN NELSON Petroleum News
The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has issued pool rules for the Tyonek gas pool in the North Fork field on the southern Kenai Peninsula.
Cook Inlet Energy, operator of the North Fork unit, in November requested an order defining a new gas pool, the North Fork unit undifferentiated Tyonek gas pool, and establishing rules governing the development and operation of the pool.
In a Feb. 8 order the commission ruled that the North Fork Tyonek gas pool comprises gas-bearing intervals which correlate with the interval between the measured depths of 4,840 and 10,797 feet in the discovery well, the NFU 41-35, drilled in 1965 by Standard Oil Company of California in a unit approved that year by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
That well, targeting oil, found commercial gas accumulations within the Tyonek formation. The well was completed as a dry gas producer and shut-in pending infrastructure and a favorable market.
The North Fork unit lands are now owned by the state of Alaska, the Kenai Peninsula Borough and include patented fee lands. There is a participating area defined by the Department of Natural Resources, named Gas Pool 1 PA. DNR defines participating areas where there is production from a unit.
Cook Inlet Energy is the 100 percent working interest owner of all lands within the North Fork unit.
Production in 2011 Armstrong Cook Inlet acquired North Fork in 2007, acquired 3-D seismic across the area and drilled two wells to establish the extent of the Tyonek gas accumulation. Both the NFU 14-25 and the NFU 32-35 were completed as gas producers, facilities were installed and production began in 2011. Armstrong Cook Inlet drilled two additional wells in 2012 and 2013, both completed as Tyonek gas producers.
Cook Inlet Energy became the North Fork operator in 2014 and since then has drilled and completed two additional Tyonek gas producers and obtained drilling permits for two additional wells.
North Fork Tyonek gas pool In its Feb. 8 order the commission said the producing gas pool in the North Fork field is the North Fork Tyonek gas pool, defined as gas-bearing intervals between 4,840 and 10,797 feet measured depth in the discovery well.
The commission put no restrictions on well spacing, except that no pay shall be opened to production in a well within 1,500 feet of an external property line where owners and landowners are not the same on both sides of the line.
This rule protects owners of acreage adjacent to the unit from having their gas drained by a well drilled in a unit.
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