No final go on 4 wellsBrooks Range Petroleum, ConocoPhillips haven’t sanctioned exploration wells Alan Bailey Petroleum News
As the winter exploration drilling season approaches on Alaska’s North Slope, Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. and ConocoPhillips both have plans for exploration wells but neither company has yet sanctioned the drilling operations, thus leaving question marks over what drilling will actually take place.
ConocoPhillips has said that it hopes to drill two exploration wells this winter and Petroleum News has obtained information indicating that both of these wells would be in the Greater Moose’s Tooth unit, in the northeastern part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The company has previously staked several well locations targeting the Rendezvous prospect in the unit.
Brooks Range has filed with Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas a plan for the drilling of up to two wells, the Placer No. 3 and Placer No. 4 wells, targeting the Placer prospect, west of the Kuparuk River unit and south of the Oooguruk unit. The company may also sidetrack the no. 4 well.
But, in a Nov. 13 email to Petroleum News, Bart Armfield, chief operating officer of Brooks Range, emphasized that his company has not yet struck a deal with ASRC Exploration LLC, the operator of the Placer unit, for the proposed drilling program. Brooks Range has filed the drilling plan “as is required if operations were to be conducted during this coming winter season,” Armfield said.
Unit expansion As reported in the Nov. 10 issue of Petroleum News, Bill Barron, director of the Division of Oil and Gas, has recently approved the expansion of the Placer unit, contingent on the drilling and testing of a new well in the unit, the flow testing of the Placer No.1 well and transmissibility testing between the two wells, with all of this work to be done by June 30, 2014. ASRC Exploration must also post bonds totaling $5.4 million and show a signed farm-out agreement with Brooks Range, the company which would farm into the unit and presumably conduct the drilling.
The division set a deadline of Dec. 15 for ASRC Exploration to accept the deal.
ConocoPhillips and its partners drilled Placer No. 1 in 2004. Although the well found an oil-bearing reservoir in thin Kuparuk C sand, the company eventually dropped the Placer leases after the results from a second well in the prospect proved disappointing.
Drilling plan According to Brooks Range’s plan for the proposed new Placer drilling, if the company meets with success in the No. 3 well it will conduct a transmissibility test, presumably with the No. 1 well. Drilling of the No. 3 and No. 4 wells would take place from a single ice pad, but work on the No. 1 well would take place from a separate ice pad.
The Placer No. 3 ice pad would be adjacent to the Placer unit. The bottomhole location for the No. 3 well would be adjacent to the Placer unit and the Brooks Range-operated Kachemak unit to the west. The bottomhole locations for both the Placer No. 4 well and its sidetrack would be in the Kachemak unit.
Brooks Range, a subsidiary of Alaska Venture Capital Group, would be the operator for the drilling program, the plan says. The company anticipates using the Nabors Rig 27E for the drilling, with ice roads being required for access to the ice pads. The plan says that ice roads and pads would be completed in time to conduct drilling operations between January and April.
Did you find this article interesting?
Tweet it
 | Digg it
|
|
Click here to subscribe to Petroleum News for as low as $89 per year.
|
