Doyon still encouragedCorporation: Nunivak No. 2 well showed promise but no commercial discovery Alan Bailey Petroleum News
Doyon Ltd. has announced the completion of its Nunivak No. 2 exploration well in the Nenana basin, in the Alaska Interior about 50 miles southwest of Fairbanks. The well encountered features indicative of an oil and gas system in the basin but did not find a commercial oil or gas resource, the Native regional corporation said Nov. 27. The well, about 16 miles west of the community of Nenana on the George Parks Highway, has now been plugged and abandoned, Doyon said. The corporation said that Nabors Alaska Rig 105 drilled the well to a vertical depth of 8,667 feet and also conducted some sidetracking from the well.
The Nunivak No. 1 well, drilled nearby to a depth of 11,100 feet in 2009 by a partnership including Doyon, also found promising subsurface indications of a petroleum system but did not encounter commercial quantities of hydrocarbons.
Oil and gas indications “The Nunivak No. 2 drill program was only the second deep test of this basin,” said Aaron Schutt, Doyon’s president and CEO when announcing the drilling results. “Despite the disappointment of a non-commercial effort, other results from the well clearly indicate the potential for significant commercial discoveries of oil and gas and we consider it a success. Follow-on studies are under way which will assist us in the development of our forward program.”
Indications of a petroleum system included “excellent potential reservoirs, competent top seals, source rocks actively expelling wet gases and similar shows of likely migrated gas which are indicative of an oil and/or gas-condensate system,” Doyon said.
James Mery, Doyon’s vice president for lands and natural resources, told Petroleum News that, with multiple, very thick coal seams in the subsurface, the Nunivak No. 2 well had proved difficult to drill. In preparation for the next steps in its Nenana exploration program, Doyon is in the process of designing a couple of different seismic options in the basin, to start the permitting process for potential seismic surveying in the winter of 2014-15, Mery said.
Oil potential After initially viewing the Nenana basin as having only natural gas potential, Doyon now sees the basin as showing significant potential for an oil find. Evidence gathered from the two Nunivak wells, from surface soil sampling and from re-evaluations of geophysical data in conjunction with new seismic data, has pointed to the possibility of oil in the basin. But, although oil is now Doyon’s prime focus in its exploration efforts, the emerging possibility of a gas pipeline from the North Slope passing through the corporation’s Nenana leases on its way to tidewater in Southcentral Alaska has spurred a review of the potential for gas in the basin. It may be possible to ship Nenana gas through the line from the Slope, Mery said.
Doyon is the sole owner of approximately 400,000 acres of state leases in the basin and also owns oil and gas rights to an additional 43,000 acres in the basin. The corporation had originally been exploring the basin in partnership with some other companies under the terms of a state exploration license. But Doyon’s partners left the project after the drilling of Nunivak No. 1 — Doyon subsequently converted some of the license acreage to state leases and continued the exploration by itself.
Yukon flats Doyon is also conducting an exploration program in another Interior Alaska geologic basin under the Yukon Flats, a large area of lowlands to the north of Fairbanks. Following re-assessments of geophysical data from the Yukon Flats basin, the corporation sees the basin as having the potential for the discovery of a significant oil field within reaching distance of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. As in the Nenana basin, surface geochemistry provides tantalizing indications of thermally generated hydrocarbons in the subsurface.
During the winter of 2012-13 Doyon conducted a 3-D seismic survey near Stevens Village, in the area of one of several deep sub-basins within the overall basin. Mery said that, despite difficulties in teasing information from the data from this survey, the data interpretation is making good progress and that Doyon hopes within the next few months to be able to use the data to identify potential drilling targets.
Winter road Meantime, the corporation is seeking permits for a winter road to Stevens Village from the North Slope Haul Road, Mery said — the Haul Road passes to the west of the Yukon Flats. If there are suitable drilling targets and the necessary funding is available, exploration drilling near Stevens Village might start in the winter of 2014-15. The winter road would support the transportation of heavy equipment such as a drilling rig, Mery said.
The idea of early permitting of the road is to enable the clearing of at least some of the road route later this winter, to avoid the risks involved in trying to do all of the road construction along with the drilling in a single winter season, Mery explained. But working on the road during this winter is contingent on the necessary permits being issued and the results of the seismic data analysis being available, he said.
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