ConocoPhillips permits sidetrack at Kenai Cosmopolitan prospect

Petroleum News Alaska Staff

ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. has received a drilling permit for a sidetrack at the Cosmopolitan prospect near Anchor Point on the southern Kenai Peninsula.

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission approved the drilling permit for the Hansen 1A Feb. 18. The directional well is from an onshore surface location in section 2, township 4 south, range 15 west, Seward Meridian, to an offshore bottomhole location in section 32, T3S-R15W, SM.

ConocoPhillips' first well at the prospect, the Hansen No. 1, was spud in October 2001 and reached total depth in early January 2002. The drilling pad for the project is on private land on a bluff overlooking Cook Inlet north of Anchor Point. Pennzoil Co. found oil and gas in the area in 1967, drilling offshore with a jack-up rig.

A joint state-federal Cosmopolitan unit, 24,600 acres and nine leases, was approved in November 2001. Unit operator ConocoPhillips and Forest Oil Corp. are the major owners. Robert Boswell, president and chief executive officer of Forest Oil, told an IPAA Investment Symposium in April that the prospect is being evaluated for commercial development.

“It tested oil in the Hemlock and in the Tyonek (formations),” he said. The exploration well was an 18,000 foot well, he said.

Reports to the state on the first well are still confidential.