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Accumulate/Burgundy plan 2015 well at Franklin Bluffs
An independent which recently began acquiring acreage on Alaska’s North Slope south of Great Bear’s acreage position along the Dalton Highway plans to drill a core hole before the end of the year.
Burgundy Xploration and joint venture partner Accumulate Energy Alaska are planning to drill a single well from a lease at the Franklin Bluffs pad adjacent to the Dalton Highway by the end of the year, south of where Great Bear has been drilling.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas, said it has received a lease plan of operations permit application and is accepting public comments through Aug. 20.
The companies plan to drill one vertical well, Icewine No. 1, to take cores in both unconventional and conventional reservoirs in lease ADL 392301 (see map on this page) some 35 miles south of Pump Station 1.
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has received an application for an oil discharge prevention and contingency plan for the Icewine well and is accepting comments through Aug. 20.
Burgundy said it will use the existing Franklin Bluffs pad and plans to use the Nabors 105AC drilling rig, or a rig with similar specifications.
Burgundy said in its application that it has 98,182 contiguous acres of state oil and gas leases near the White Hills. This is an area where Unocal drilled five wells beginning in 2008. Burgundy said it has formed a joint venture with Accumulate Energy which will eventually be the operator of the project. Both companies are Houston based.
The division said Burgundy is currently the lessee of record for the lease, ADL 392301, but has submitted an application to assign an 87.5 percent working interest to Accumulate Energy for the lease. That application is pending, the division said, and when the assignment is approved, Accumulate Energy will be the operator of the lease and the drilling program.
Core well planned In correspondence with the division, Accumulate said Burgundy was awarded six oil and gas leases near Franklin Bluffs in 2012 and 2013. Accumulate said prior to the November 2014 lease sale where Burgundy took an additional 63 leases it entered into a joint venture with Burgundy.
The lease plan of operations says Icewine No. 1 will be a vertical well “to take core in potentially petroliferous zones in both unconventional and conventional reservoirs.”
“The goal of this pilot drill program is to analyze the potential productivity, deliverability, and commerciality of the greater Icewine project area,” the plan says. Depending on results from initial drilling and time remaining in the season, a lateral well, sidetracks or additional penetrations from the same exploration pad may be drilled.
The plan says the final location of the Icewine No. 1 well will ensure that it does not intersect with the drill path of the Franklin Bluffs No. 1, a 1,818-foot shallow well drilled in 2005 by the federal Bureau of Land Management.
The plan says drilling into hydrocarbon-bearing zones will not occur before Sept. 1. In addition to well formation evaluations using open and cased hole logs, “a coring program is proposed for the evaluation of the unconventional objective and potentially within Brookian conventional reservoir targets.” Production tests may be performed if appropriate.
Burgundy said it will use rig mats underlain with heavy-mil liner as foundations for the rig and camp. The company plans year-round access to the Icewine drill location from the Dalton Highway via an existing gravel road.
The schedule of operations indicates potential maintenance of the pad and access roads in the second half of August, mobilization of the camp and drilling rig in the second half of September, exploration drilling from mid-October through mid-December and demobilization from mid-December through the end of the year.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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