Aurora Gas applies for well at Three Mile Creek unit

Company proposes gravel road, drill pad, with 8,000-foot gas well to be drilled October-December in Alaska

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News Editor-in-Chief

Aurora Gas LLC has applied to the state of Alaska to drill a development gas well at the Three Mile Creek unit this fall. Aurora is operator of the unit; Forest Oil Corp. is the other working interest owner. There are three Cook Inlet Region Inc. leases and four state of Alaska leases in the 8,080-acre unit, formed in January some 45 miles west of Anchorage in Southcentral Alaska and some seven miles north of the village of Tyonek.

Aurora told the state in a September application that the Three Mile Creek Unit No. 1 well will be drilled “on the same structure and up dip of the existing Superior Three Mile Creek No. 1” drilled in 1967. Superior was looking for oil, Aurora said, and plugged and abandoned the well as a dry hole. Gas reserves were bypassed “and developing these reserves from the optimal structural position is the purpose” of this fall’s well, the company said.

The well site will require construction of one-quarter mile of gravel road from the gravel road system built during previous exploration and a 200 foot by 300 foot drilling pad. The site is accessible from Shirleyville, Tyonek and Beluga on the existing gravel road system on the west side of Cook Inlet. Shirleyville is Aurora’s base of operations, with a small airstrip and 24-man camp. Approximately 10 days of drilling and 20 days of testing and completion are anticipated, and Aurora said the schedule may be deferred if a suitable drilling rig is not available prior to winter. A directional well is planned, with a true vertical depth of 8,000 feet.

Aurora said that at the conclusion of operations on this well, “the rig will be demobilized to the Aspen No. 1 prospect, stacked on the west side or barged back to Kenai.”

A buried six-inch gas pipeline would connect the well to Aurora’s existing Lone Creek pipeline, approximately 4.5 miles to the south.

Aurora’s three-year plan of exploration for the unit includes two exploration wells and new seismic, with the first well to be drilled by Jan. 31, 2006, and the second well by Jan. 31, 2007. Seismic was also required over the unit, and Aurora President Scott Pfoff told Petroleum News in July that he was “very encouraged by the seismic we shot over Three Mile Creek this past winter” and said then that Aurora was working closely with Forest Oil “to determine if and when a well should be drilled.”