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Point Thomson owners agree to exchange data available on unit Ken Boyd of Division of Oil and Gas says agreement doesn’t make development economic, but allows evaluation of all geologic pieces Kristen Nelson PNA News Editor
Responding to demands from the Department of Natural Resources that the Point Thomson unit “act like a unit,” owners agreed as part of negotiations over the current plan of development to share seismic data, well data and non-unit studies.
In a March 31 letter to Ken Boyd, director of the Division of Oil and Gas, unit operator Exxon Company U.S.A. reported that the major Point Thomson unit working interest owners “have agreed to exchange all applicable PTU 3-D seismic surveys, PTU well data and non-unit studies in the PTU area.”
The agreement to exchange data “doesn’t guarantee that Point Thomson is economic,” Boyd told PNA April 5, “but it gives them the opportunity to evaluate now all the geologic pieces of the unit.”
“I just couldn’t be more pleased,” he said. “Now, at least, the unit can speak among itself and map all the horizons, all the geological formations and make some reasonable determination as to whether the unit is economic.” Point Thomson sands not economic And, Boyd said, the owners now “have information to discuss things like facilities… What facilities will be needed, what kind, what kind of pipeline size, can you use Badami?” These discussions of things that go beyond geology help answer questions that need to be answered on the way to a commercial unit, he said.
Boyd told the House Special Committee on Oil and Gas March 23 that the unit has mapped the Thomson sand, the geological formation that covers a lot of the unit.
“They have,” Boyd said, “been working on that for years. And … they have come up with a very detailed analysis of the Thomson sand.” There isn’t much disagreement in the unit about how the Thomson sand works or how it would be developed. Because the Thomson sand is over pressured, he said, “it makes it much more difficult to either cycle gas or develop the reservoir because the costs are so high.” The unit owners, Boyd said, “have looked at the …Thomson sand and have said this sand, without the infrastructure, without a gas line, without a gas sales option, is just not economic.”
Boyd told the committee that as part of the current plan of development he asked the owners to look at “all the rock formation, both Point Thomson sands and any of the shallower Brookian so-called turbidite accumulations. And does that, then, become something that can be developed economically?”
High development costs Asked about the cost of adding enough pipeline to reach Point Thomson, Boyd said he thought the real cost would be in wells and facilities at Point Thomson to recycle the gas — return it to the reservoir to maintain pressure once oil and some gas had been removed. Huge compressors would be required for recycling, he said. And the wells at Point Thomson cost “twice as much and more than the wells in other places…because of the extremely high pressure.”
Boyd said that everything he’s seen on Point Thomson points to a need to develop both the Thomson sand — the condensate — and the overlying oil horizons. The companies have, he said, “put forward a number of rather detailed development plans.” The option which has looked the best so far, Boyd said, “is a gas cycling option very much like Prudhoe Bay.” The liquids would be stripped out and sold and gas would be sold. Some gas would be reinjected. Boyd said that a key component of a Point Thomson development plan would be selling the gas. What’s next at Point Thomson The current Point Thomson plan of development calls for the exchange of data and for consensus mapping of all horizons at Point Thomson. Boyd said that when “the consensus mapping comes back to us, which is due in September of this year, I think we’ll then have a really good picture of what Point Thomson is all about.”
He also said that he was waiting for results from the Red Dog exploration well, being drilled between the Badami and Point Thomson units. Success at Red Dog, “finding a way to fix Badami’s reservoir” performance and development of Liberty would all contribute to making Point Thomson development economic, Boyd said.
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