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Point Thomson startup in May; Caelus drills 2nd Smith Bay well
ExxonMobil’s Point Thomson field on the North Slope is expected start condensate production by May 1, with a startup deadline of mid-May, Corri Feige, director of Alaska's Division of Oil and Gas, told the Alaska House Resources Committee on Feb. 24. Feige was presenting an overview of the current status of Alaska's oil and gas industry, and noted several significant activities.
Feige said that Caelus Energy has completed the first of its exploration wells in Smith Bay and is now drilling the second well planned for this winter's exploration season. Smith Bay is on the Beaufort Sea coast, towards the western end of the North Slope. Caelus continues its development activities in the Oooguruk unit in the nearshore waters of the Beaufort Sea off the central North Slope. The company’s Nuna development, which is in the Oooguruk unit but will operate from an onshore pad, is on track for first production in late 2017, Feige said.
BP, ConocoPhillips and Hilcorp BP continues with an aggressive program designed to maintain and expand production from the Prudhoe Bay field, with the completion of eight wells, 46 new sidetrack wells, and 420 well workovers in the main part of the field in 2015. The company also drilled some wells in the Lisburne field, and gathered some new seismic data in the northern part of the Prudhoe Bay unit, Feige said.
Having brought on line the first wells in drill site 2S in the Kuparuk River field and at the CD5 drill site in the Colville River unit, ConocoPhillips is moving ahead with a new development at Mooses Tooth 1 in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The company is also planning further significant drilling in the Kuparuk River unit in 2016, Feige said.
Hilcorp, which acquired from BP ownership interests and operatorship in several North Slope fields, has returned two wells to production in the Northstar field. The company drilled three new wells and is undertaking some new facility construction in the Milne Point field. Hilcorp plans to drill 10 more wells at Milne Point and conduct multiple well workovers in 2016, Feige said.
New exploration and development Repsol and Armstrong Oil & Gas have started the National Environmental Policy Act review for a proposed development in the Pikka unit, between the Kuparuk River and Alpine fields. Production from that development would likely come on line in five to seven years, Feige said. AEX, a subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corp., is drilling its Placer No. 3 exploration well in the central North Slope to the south of Oooguruk.
Great Bear Petroleum is conducting a further large 3-D seismic survey in its acreage south of Prudhoe Bay, but has postponed the re-entry of its Alkaid No. 1 well from this year until 2017, following Gov. Walker's 2015 tax credit veto, Feige said. The company originally drilled the well in 2014. Great Bear is also in the process of bringing new partners into its North Slope program, Feige said.
And Accumulate Energy, having drilled its Icewine no 1 well, at Franklin Bluffs on the Dalton Highway, is now preparing to start a seismic survey in its leases. Great Bear and Accumulate are both pursuing shale oil plays.
Overall the robust cross section of companies working on the North Slope tells us that the industry still views the resource endowment and the investment environment as making Alaska a good place to be, Feige said.
The Cook Inlet basin The Cook Inlet basin is also seeing some significant activity.
Hilcorp is working diligently throughout the basin to bring oil and gas production on line and anticipates spending about $120 million in the Cook Inlet region in 2016 - the company has done a fine job of driving down its operating costs, in part through the aggregation of its drilling and well workover operations, Feige said. Hilcorp has also been able to introduce a level of competition in the Alaska service industry through sometimes using firms from the Lower 48, she said.
The larger jack-up drilling rig that Furie Operating Alaska has contracted for its Cook Inlet operations is now en route to Alaska from Singapore and is expected to arrive in mid-May. Furie needs the larger rig because the Spartan 151 rig that it had been using is too small for safe operations when doing development drilling at Furie’s new offshore gas production platform, Feige said. Gas production from Furie’s offshore Kitchen Lights field began late last year. Furie anticipates using the new jack-up rig for full-field development at Kitchen Lights, and to drill further exploration wells in the unit, she said.
Cosmo to come on line BlueCrest Energy Inc. is bringing in a large land-based drilling rig in April to develop the Cosmopolitan oil field off the southern coast of the Kenai Peninsula, using extended reach wells from onshore. First oil is expected in mid-2016. The company may also develop gas from offshore at Cosmopolitan, potentially using the Spartan 151 rig that Furie has now released. However, if the gas development does not proceed soon the Spartan rig will depart the inlet, Feige said.
Apache Alaska Corp. is continuing its program of seismic data acquisition for its extensive Cook Inlet lease holdings. The company is permitting a new well that it may drill in late 2016, Feige said.
ConocoPhillips has announced the sale of its interests in the Beluga River unit to electric utilities Municipal Light & Power and Chugach Electric Association but, apparently, still has its North Cook Inlet gas field up for sale.
Feige also commented that a number of small independent companies, some working in partnership, now operate in the Cook Inlet oil and gas industry. Those independents include AIX Energy, Nordaq Energy and Aurora Gas.
- ALAN BAILEY
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