Hilcorp: 2nd oil exploration well, Frances 1, planned for Ninilchik

Hilcorp is about to drill a second exploration well, the Frances 1, in the Ninilchik unit on the west coast of Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, Hilcorp spokeswoman Lori Nelson told Petroleum News in a Sept. 30 email.

Earlier this year the company applied to change its plan of operations for the Susan Dionne pad in the unit to allow the drilling of a 12,000-foot-deep oil exploration well from the pad. The application said that the company might drill a second well if that first well proved successful.

Nelson said that Hilcorp had recently completed the drilling of the first exploration well, the Ninilchik Unit Susan Dionne No. 8, using the Saxon 147 drilling rig.

“We will be using the same rig, the Saxon 147 rig, to drill Frances 1,” Nelson said. “We should begin rigging up next week.”

No results are publicly available from drilling of the first well.

The Ninilchik field, which was discovered in 1961 and went into production in 2003, is a natural gas field. There have been six oil exploration wells previously drilled in the Ninilchik unit, with one of these, a well drilled in 1978 at Clam Gulch, having minimal oil shows, Nelson has previously said.

—Alan Bailey