The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has approved Hilcorp Alaska’s application for a spacing exception to drill, complete, test and produce the Whiskey Gulch No. 1 oil and gas exploration well in an undefined oil pool within 500 feet of a property line and in an undefined gas well within 1,500 feet of a property line - in both cases, a location where the owner and landowner are not the same on both sides of the line.
An exception to the commission’s spacing requirements is required, something that is not necessary when fields are unitized.
Hilcorp is the 100% working interest owner in state lease tract 001, ADL 0392666; mineral landowners for properties within 3,000 feet of Whiskey Gulch No. 1 include: the Alaska Department of Natural Resources; University of Alaska; and eight private individuals.
In 2019 and 2020 Hilcorp drilled a dozen Whiskey Gulch 600-foot stratigraphic tests.
Earlier this year Hilcorp applied to DNR’s Division of Oil and Gas for a lease plan of operations for exploration at the Whiskey Gulch prospect, which is some 3 miles northeast of the community of Anchor Point and north of Hilcorp’s Seaview unit, which lies west and south of Anchor Point.
As Hilcorp described the project to the division, the exploration phase of the project includes construction of a 2.75-acre gravel pad on private surface lands at the end of Cape Ninilchik Avenue, about 1 mile east of the Sterling Highway, with the construction phase to begin in mid-March, followed by drilling in June, with drilling and testing possibly extending until early September.
Hilcorp told the division that the new pad was required to reach potential targets in the Anchor Point area.
AOGCC
In its June 10 order for Whiskey Gulch No. 1, AOGCC said the feature at Whiskey Gulch “was previously defined by shallow stratigraphic test boreholes, existing 2D seismic data, and a gravity survey over the area.”
“This spacing exception allows Hilcorp to penetrate the desired sands for exploration and testing at the most prospective location on the top of the subsurface structure.”
In its lease plan of operations, Hilcorp said it plans to drill one gas-only exploration well and one gas/oil exploration well to a depth of some 10,000 feet on state oil and gas lease ADL 392666.
The gas/oil combination exploration well, Whiskey Gulch 1, would be drilled to some 10,000 feet measured depth to the southwest of the pad, with the first 7,700 feet of the wellbore perforated to evaluate gas zones and the bottomhole location evaluation for oil resources.
The second proposed well, Whiskey Gulch 14, would extend some 10,000 feet measured depth to the northeast of the pad and would be a gas-only exploration well. Hilcorp said “no oil exploration targets have been identified” for the Whiskey Gulch 14.
Drilling would be done using a Hilcorp owned rig, either rig 169 or rig 147.
