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Aurora Gas working on plan for new unit on west side of Alaska’s Cook Inlet
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief
Aurora Gas LLC, which produces natural gas from the west side of Cook Inlet at its Nicolai Creek field, is working with Forest Oil Corp. to form a new unit, the Three Mile Creek exploration unit, also on the west side of Cook Inlet.
The target is natural gas in the Beluga formation.
The proposed unit would include Aurora and Forest Oil leases east and northeast of Aurora’s Moquawkie unit, where the company is putting in a pipeline to take natural gas from Lone Creek, a late 1990s discovery by Anadarko Petroleum-ARCO Alaska now owned by Aurora.
The 9,200 acres in the proposed unit are a combination of state of Alaska, Mental Health Trust and Cook Inlet Region Inc. leases.
Aurora recently completed acquiring leases over a portion of the unit and interpreting proprietary 2-D seismic data in the area surrounding the unit, the company told the state in November. There are two state leases, one Mental Health Trust lease and two CIRI leases in the proposed unit; the state leases expire at the end of January.
There has been some drilling in the area.
The Superior Oil Co. drilled the Three-Mile Creek State No. 1 in the southern area of the proposed unit in the summer of 1967. The well was a vertical hole drilled to 13,773 feet. Phillips Petroleum drilled the North Tyonek State No. 1 in the middle of the proposed unit in the summer of 1973, a vertical role drilled to 6,063 feet. Superior had drilled the Chuit State No. 1 and No. 2 wells west of the proposed unit in 1962. The wells, both vertical holes, were drilled to depths of 12,500 feet and 9,152 feet respectively.
All four wells were plugged and abandoned.
Just to the south of the Chuit wells, however, Anadarko Petroleum drilled the Lone Creek No. 1 well in 1998.
In October 1998 Anadarko and partner ARCO Alaska announced a natural gas discovery at the well, which flowed 10.6 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from 53 feet of perforations at approximately 2,400 feet. Anadarko and ARCO Alaska successor ConocoPhillips sold 43,000 acres to Moquawkie to Aurora in 2002, and Aurora is installing a pipeline to tie the Lone Creek gas into an existing natural gas pipeline. Exploration plan calls for wells, seismic The companies are proposing an exploration well in 2004-05 to test the Tsuga 2-4 (Middle Beluga) sandstone updip from the Three Mile Creek and North Tyonek State wells on the Three Mile Creek/Olson Creek anticlinal trend. The well is proposed to a depth of 3,000 feet or the base of the Tsuga 2-4 interval, whichever is lesser. The alternative for work in the 2004-05 year one of the plan is acquisition of at least 20 miles of new 2-D seismic to better delineate the trend. If the first well or seismic acquisition are not begun in 2004-05, the state would receive $8 an acre for the two state leases, ADL 388232 and ADL 388233.
If seismic is shot in 2004-05 and the initial test well is not drilled, it would be drilled in 2005-06. If the well is not drilled in year two, the state would receive another $8 per acre for the two state leases.
A second exploration well would be drilled in 2006-07 or additional 2-D seismic would be acquired.
Aurora told the state that seismic data currently available is of relatively poor quality, and does not provide a good basis for a firm commitment to an exploration drilling program.
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