|
Conoco applies for KRU Torok pool changes
AOGCC pool rules for Kuparuk, Oooguruk, require changes reflecting inclusion of Torok area formerly part of Oooguruk into KRU Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
ConocoPhillips Alaska acquired 100% ownership in the Nuna prospect adjacent to the Kuparuk River unit from Caelus Natural Resources Alaska in 2019 and applied to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas to have the 11 tracts, 21,000 acres, added to the Kuparuk River unit. The tracts were included in the 12th expansion of the Kuparuk River unit.
The company has now applied to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to have the Kuparuk River Torok oil pool expanded to include that acreage. The expansion would make the western, northern and southern boundaries of the KRU Torok oil pool equivalent to the current KRU boundary, allowing for development of the Torok over the area, the company said in a July 24 application to the commission.
When it acquired the acreage in 2019 ConocoPhillips said it represented “an attractive addition to our expanding North Slope position and will allow ConocoPhillips to cost effectively develop Nuna utilizing Kuparuk River Unit infrastructure.”
In applying to the division for the unit expansion the company said development of the expansion area through existing KRU facilities would minimize environmental impacts because “the tract owners will not have to build stand-along processing facilities solely for the benefit of these areas,” since the Kuparuk River unit working interest owners, ConocoPhillips, Chevron U.S.A. and ExxonMobil Alaska Production, already have facility sharing agreements in place.
ConocoPhillips told the division reserves in the expansion area “are not large enough to support the costs of full processing facilities,” and even if such standalone facilities were economic, “there would be economic waste due to the existence of duplicate facilities and services that could be provided by the KRU.”
Hearing scheduled AOGCC noticed the application Aug. 3, and said ConocoPhillips had requested amendments to both the conservation order and the area injection order for the Torok oil pool, and said that on its own motion it is proposing to amend the conservation order and the area injection order for Oooguruk, removing the acreage from the Oooguruk orders, since Oooguruk operator Eni US Operating Co. does not hold the leases for the area.
A hearing has been tentatively scheduled on the application for Sept. 15 at 10 a.m. at the commission’s Anchorage office, but the commission said if a request for a hearing is not timely filed it may issue an order without a hearing.
Development plans ConocoPhillips said the pool rules order for Torok, issued in July 2016, “includes the accumulation of hydrocarbons common to and correlating with the interval between the measured depths of 4,991 and 5,272 feet in the Kalubik No. 1 well.”
The company said expansion of the Torok oil pool “will allow for development of the Torok from KRU 3S pad, and the newly named KRU 3T pad (previously known as Nuna pad).”
Testing of the Torok in Kuparuk began in 2013 with recompletion of the 3S-19 well, ConocoPhillips said. “Since that time four horizontal wells (2 producers, and 2 injectors), and a vertical data collection well (Moraine 1) have been drilled to assess the Torok,” with 10.5 million barrels of oil produced from the Torok from these wells.
“The Torok consists of lower Cretaceous-aged, Brookian lower slope-to-basin floor turbidite deposits comprised of thinly laminated mudstones, siltstones, and very fine to fine-grained sandstones sourced from the paleo-Brookian shelf margin to the west. The sandstones and siltstones have been interpreted to be locally continuous, sheet-like deposits within turbidite lobe complexes,” with gross thickness reaching some 300 feet but thinning to the southwest, southeast and northeast, the company said.
There are two additional horizontal wells planned, one producer and one injector, with both approved by KRU working interest owners. The wells will be drilled at 3S pad as part of the next rotary drilling program, ConocoPhillips said.
| 