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Phillips files second plan of development for Stinson with DNR
Kristen Nelson PNA News Editor
Phillips Petroleum Co. is continuing to evaluate the reservoir penetrated by the 1990 16,156-foot 1 Stinson exploratory well in conjunction with work at the Point Thomson unit where the company is one of the leaseholders. The state has approved a one-year second plan of development for the lease on which the well was drilled, which is in the Beaufort Sea east of Point Thomson.
Ken Boyd, director of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas, told Phillips in a June letter that he is approving the company’s second plan of development for the lease for a single year only since development work on the plan is dependent on work by the Point Thomson unit, and that unit’s current plan of development expires this September.
“Should the Point Thomson mapping project be completed as scheduled and significant progress made on the ‘remapping of all potential hydrocarbon accumulations’, I will consider a two-year Third Plan of Development,” Boyd said.
Phillips owns 100 percent of the lease, ADL-371024, which is offshore north of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Stinson well, for which ARCO Alaska Inc. was the operator, was certified as capable of producing oil, gas or associated substances in paying quantities in February 1997.
Phillips won the lease in state oil and gas lease sale 50 in June 1987, paying $423.39 an acre, $1,083,890 for the 2,560-acre tract. The 10-year primary term was extended by the state’s certification that the well was capable of producing.
Stinson independently insufficient “Reserves encountered in the Stinson #1 are independently insufficient to justify installation of facilities,” Phillips told the state in its first plan of development, approved by the state last year.
Since completion of the Stinson well in May 1990, Phillips told the state, the company has participated in exploration efforts in the area, including the Camden Bay seismic project and participating in ARCO’s 1 Kuvlum exploratory well in 1992 and the 2 Kuvlum, 3 Kuvlum and 1 Wild Weasel wells in 1993. Phillips said it also supported the drilling of ARCO’s 1997 1 Warthog exploration well through a farmout.
In the 1998 plan of development, Phillips said it was “aggressively evaluating development options for Point Thomson” and encouraging unit activities to develop that unit.
Other development necessary first In its second plan of development, submitted earlier this year, Phillips reiterated that stand-alone Stinson development is not economic.
“Development of potential reserves underlying ADL-371024, as identified in the Stinson #1 well, is dependent upon ongoing exploration and development activities aimed at establishing production and related facilities in this region of the North Slope and the Beaufort Sea in the future.”
Phillips said that the absence of three dimensional seismic coverage over the area is hampering further evaluation of the lease. However, the company said, it and other working interest owners in the Point Thomson unit have completed data exchanges “necessary to facilitate the joint mapping of potential Brookian objectives” in the Point Thomson unit, making two approaches possible for the further evaluation of ADL-371024.
If new 3-D seismic becomes available over ADL-371024, that data could be consolidated with well information and Point Thomson 3-D seismic “to allow mapping of the extent of the Tertiary oil reserves tested by the Stinson #1 well.” In the absence of additional seismic data, Phillips could utilize existing Point Thomson area 3-D seismic to evaluate pre-Tertiary carbonate reservoir tested in the A-1 Exxon-Alaska State well, and then extend this interpretation using ARCO-Phillips proprietary 2-D seismic grid and appropriate seismic data from the coastal plain of ANWR.
“The evaluation would attempt to connect the State A #1 reservoir with the carbonates encountered in the Stinson well, to determine if a potential reservoir and trap exist.”
Phillips told the state it is also remapping all potential hydrocarbon accumulations within the greater Camden Bay area “as part of a regional economic evaluation” and noted that it has recently acquired new exploration acreage in the Beaufort Sea “and continues to pursue additional exploration concepts in this and other areas of northern Alaska.”
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