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Oil Search reports Pikka B side-track started; Pikka C progressing
Alan Bailey Petroleum News
Oil Search has published a status report for its winter appraisal drilling program in the Pikka unit on Alaska’s North Slope. The company is drilling wells to evaluate a major oil pool that it plans to develop in the Nanushuk formation. The wells involved are the Pikka B and sidetrack at the southern end of the unit, and the Pikka C in the central part of the unit. Oil Search has planned to drill sidetracks from both the B and the C wells. The idea is to further appraise the subsurface reservoir, prior to the start of front-end engineering and design for the development project.
Pikka B well Oil Search’s report says that the specific objective of the Pikka B well is to tie down more accurately the resource volumes in the oil field. The drilling of the well was started on Dec. 31 and attained a total depth of 4,844 feet during January. Rock cores were collected and processed from 480 feet of Nanushuk sands. The drill team also successfully conducted six logging runs in the well. As anticipated, the well encountered high porosity sands, saturated with hydrocarbons, the report says.
After plugging and abandoning the well, the team started drilling a sidetrack at a 71-degree angle from the main well bore. During January that sidetrack attained a depth of 3,370 feet. The plan is to drill into and core Nanushuk sands, and then conduct a well test, the report says.
Pikka C well The purpose of the Pikka C well is to use this well as a “proof-of-concept” development well, to reduce the uncertainty regarding the production characteristics of the Nanushuk reservoir. Drilling started on Jan. 23 and had reached a depth of 2,215 feet by the end of the month. Surface casing has been set. The idea is to drill into the Nanushuk reservoir, evaluate the reservoir characteristics, and then drill a lateral well in the reservoir. Production flow testing will follow the drilling.
Oil Search is partnering with Repsol, Armstrong Energy and GMT Exploration in the project, but has an option to buy out Armstrong’s and GMT’s interests this year. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published the final environmental impact statement for the Pikka project in November. Oil Search has indicated an expectation for first oil from the development in 2023. The company is still refining its estimates of how much recoverable oil the field may hold but anticipates a recoverable volume of at least 500 million barrels. The Pikka unit lies to the east of ConocoPhillips’ Colville River Delta unit.
- ALAN BAILEY
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