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53rd POD approved for North Fork unit
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Cook Inlet Energy’s proposed 53rd plan of development for the North Fork unit on the southern Kenai Peninsula was approved by the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas on March 2.
The division said North Fork has been in production since 2011 and produced 17.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas through December. In 2014, Cook Inlet Energy, then a Miller Energy subsidiary, took over North Fork from a partnership led by Armstrong Oil and Gas, which had brought the field onto production. North Star was discovered by Standard Oil of California in 1965 at the North Fork 41-35 well. The target had been oil.
NorthStar Energy acquired North Fork in 2000 and in 2001 tested the 41-35 well and reported a flow of 4 million cubic feet per day from an interval at a depth of 8,500 feet.
A pipeline was required to move the gas to market, and after acquiring the field in 2007 Armstrong Cook Inlet drilled a second well at in 2008 and along with partners formed a midstream company and built the 7.4-mile North Fork Pipeline from the unit to Anchor Point.
Most commitments met Cook Inlet Energy, a Glacier Oil and Gas company, met most of the commitments it made in the previous plan of development, the division said. That 52nd plan had included commitments to complete reprocessing seismic data; convert a depleted well into a Class II water disposal well; conduct workover operations to increase production from the NFU 14-25 and NFU 41-35 wells; and increase production, including perforating additional drilling pad locations.
Cook Inlet Energy “reports completing several ‘small ball’ projects to enhance production from currently producing wells,” the division said, ranging from downhole plugs to control water intrusion, perforating some additional zones to increase production from two wells, adding perforations to NFU 34-26, setting a plug to shut off water and reperforating NFU 32-35 to optimizing gas well process flow and replacing well houses on NFU 24-26 and NFU 42-35.
The company did not convert any wells to water disposal because it was able to control water intrusion, but the division said Cook Inlet Energy “will continue to monitor water volumes and may complete this project at a future date.” The company did not reprocess North Fork unit 3-D seismic.
53rd plan For the 53rd plan of development, the division said the company has committed to completing some small production improvements by perforating additional zones and setting plugs where needed to control water intrusion. Infrastructure improvements such as additional compression and separation facilities will be used to enhance production.
The division said the company’s long-range plans include proposed activities to convert a depleted well into a Class II water disposal well and a continued development drilling program to fully delineate and develop all fault blocks within the field.
Proposed long-range developments also include consideration of additional drilling pad locations, negotiation of long-term gas sales contracts and additional drilling of potential candidate wells.
The division’s approval of the 53rd plan covers this March through March 2019.
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