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Repsol details North Slope plans Spanish major permitting four locations for three wells in the un-unitized fairway between the Oooguruk and Colville River units Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
Repsol E&P USA Inc. is detailing its winter exploration plans for the North Slope.
The American subsidiary of the Spanish major plans to drill at least one vertical well each at three locations on un-unitized leases near its Qugruk unit this winter, but could also drill as many as two sidetracks at each well, the company told state officials.
Repsol is permitting four drilling locations in the fairway between the Oooguruk and Colville River units: Qugruk No. 1, No. 3 and No. 6, and the alternate Qugruk No. 5.
Repsol first permitted two locations — Qugruk No. 1 and Qugruk No. 3 — in 2011, and a third, Qugruk No. 6, is a new well planned for the location where Repsol began drilling the Qugruk No. 2 well last winter, before a shallow gas kick compromised operations.
Repsol plans to use Nabors rig 105AC at Qugruk No. 1, Nabors rig 99 at Qugruk No. 3 and Nabors rig 9ES at either Qugruk No. 6 or at the alternate Qugruk No. 5 location.
Outside existing unit The proposed wells are all outside the existing Qugruk unit boundaries, but on leases in the onshore fairway between the Pioneer Natural Resources Oooguruk unit and the ConocoPhillips Kuparuk River unit that Repsol had originally proposed for unitization.
Qugruk No. 1 would be on ADL 391460 and Qugruk No. 6 would be on ADL 391456, just a few miles to the south and west, respectively, of the Kuukpik No. 3 well ARCO drilled into the Kingak Shale in 1993. The Kuukpik No. 3 produced “limited quantities of oil during testing from the Nuiqsut sand in the Jurassic Kingak formation, as well as the Cretaceous Kuparuk C sand,” according to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.
The other two proposed well locations are to the south, between the ConocoPhillips Colville River unit and the Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. Kachemach unit. Qugruk No. 3 would be on ADL 391445, and the alternate, Qugruk No. 5, would be on ADL 391553.
The Qugruk unit comprises seven offshore leases north of the Colville River unit. The Qugruk No. 4 well Repsol drilled in the unit last winter satisfied certain preliminary work commitments for the unit, allowing the company to explore other leases this winter.
The state is accepting comments on the plan through Nov. 24.
Pads, roads, airstrips The program involved a summer field program this year to route future ice roads and site future ice pads, and to set thermistors for measuring ground temperatures in the region.
This winter, Repsol plan to construct an ice staging pad north of the Kuparuk River unit Drill Site 2M, some 30 miles of ice roads to its three drilling pads and an ice airstrip.
Repsol said it expects drilling to occur between January and April, with demobilization to take place in April and May and summer cleanup continuing through July and August.
—A copyrighted oil and gas lease map from Mapmakers Alaska was a research tool used in preparing this story.
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