Hilcorp permits Happy Creek strat tests

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Hilcorp Alaska has permitted seven stratigraphic tests with the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, Happy Valley Nos. 1, 4-6 and 8-10. The stratigraphic tests are on the Kenai Peninsula in townships 1 and 2 south, range 14 west, Seward Meridian, an area at or near the southern end of the company’s Ninilchik unit.

The commission approved the permits Sept. 1 and Sept. 3.

Hilcorp, Cook Inlet’s largest oil and gas producer, has been exploring on the more southerly portion of the peninsula and brought the Seaview gas field at Anchor Point online this summer.

At a prospect north of Seaview, Whiskey Gulch, Hilcorp drilled a dozen 600-foot stratigraphic tests in 2019 and 2020 and has a permit from AOGCC to drill the Whiskey Gulch No. 1 oil and gas exploration well.

The company, which took over BP’s North Slope assets and operates a number of fields there, including Prudhoe Bay, is also becoming active in Interior Alaska.

Earlier this year Hilcorp received permits from AOGCC for stratigraphic tests in the Yukon Flats basin in the Alaska Interior and plans to drill up to 15 stratigraphic tests, all on a block of Doyon Ltd. subsurface around the villages of Birch Creek and Fort Yukon. In late 2019 Hilcorp entered into an oil and gas exploration agreement with Doyon for the basin. Hilcorp conducted an aerial gravity survey of the Yukon Flats basin in the summer of 2020.

- KRISTEN NELSON