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New rig swings into action atop Osprey Anchorage-based Cook Inlet Energy ordered $19.5 million rig in Texas, plans multiple well workovers on inlet’s southernmost platform Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
Cook Inlet Energy LLC has put its new drilling rig to work atop the Osprey offshore platform, a milestone more than a year in the making.
After an inspection and a test of its blowout preventer, rig 35 gained approval from state regulators to commence drilling, an Aug. 21 company press release said.
The rig is now embarking on a series of well workovers on Osprey, the newest and southernmost of the 16 platforms in Alaska’s Cook Inlet. Osprey sits in the Redoubt unit, the heart of which is the Redoubt Shoal field.
The rig already is positioned over the first well, RU-1, which has been shut-in due to an equipment problem. The company plans to remove an old electric submersible pump and conduct wellbore optimization “in hopes of not only bringing RU-1 back online, but also increasing RU-1’s historical flow rates,” the press release said. The well previously was producing about 270 barrels of oil per day.
‘Enormous potential’ After the RU-1 workover, rig 35 will move to another shut-in well, RU-2. That workover is anticipated to take 45 to 60 days.
Bringing these two wells online is expected to double Cook Inlet Energy’s production. The company averaged 1,042 barrels of crude per day in June, according to Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission data.
Next on the workover schedule are three more Redoubt unit wells. Operations will include drilling sidetracks to restore production from wells with problems such as collapsed casings.
Anchorage-based Cook Inlet Energy is a subsidiary of publicly traded Miller Energy Resources Inc. of Tennessee.
With Miller’s help, the executives at Cook Inlet Energy in late 2009 acquired a collection of west Cook Inlet oil and gas assets, including the West McArthur River oil field and the Osprey platform.
The previous operator, Pacific Energy Resources Ltd., had filed for bankruptcy, and the Osprey platform was in “lighthouse mode” and in danger of becoming a ward of the state.
Since the acquisition, Cook Inlet Energy has hustled to restore production from Osprey, which Forcenergy Inc. originally installed in 2000. At present, only a single well is producing.
A major part of the company’s strategy was acquiring a new rig. In June 2011, parent company Miller Energy announced a contract with Voorhees Equipment and Consulting Inc. of Houston for the custom construction and purchase of the rig. The company has put the cost of rig 35 at $19.5 million.
It’s a 2,000-horsepower National 1320 model designed for both offshore and onshore work, with a maximum drilling depth of 24,000 feet, the Aug. 21 press release said.
Scott M. Boruff, Miller Energy’s chief executive, said the commencement of rig 35 operations is a milestone in the plan to “tap the enormous potential” of the Redoubt Shoal field, which he described as “our single largest reserve base.”
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