Other development possibilitiesIn AlaskaJoe Marushack, president...

Other development possibilitiesIn Alaska

Joe Marushack, president of ConocoPhillips Alaska, told the Anchorage Chamber "Recent years have seen an upsurge in new oil discoveries in the state, new oil developments moving forward, and intense efforts to slow production declines from established oil fields"ConocoPhillips also sees other development possibilities in its North Slope acreage: The company has a significant number of untested prospects in addition to discoveries that are still under evaluation. During a six-well exploration season, last winter the company discovered oil in the Putu wells near the village of Nuiqsut and the Stony Hill well to the south. The company plans a six- to eight-well program with two drilling rigs for the coming winter. Two exploration wells, including a well, further testing the Narwhal trend where the Putu drilling discovered oil, are planned for November, with the drilling to be done from surface locations on existing gravel drilling pads. The Narwhal trend is the same prospect trend in which Oil Search is developing the Pikka discovery, primarily in the Nanushuk formation.The remaining four to six wells that ConocoPhillips plans for this winter will conduct further tests in the Willow discovery, a discovery that also involves the Nanushuk formation. Marushack said that ConocoPhillips plans to conduct “interference testing,” evaluating the interactions between wells as a result of injection and production. The idea is to determine what size of facility the field will need, he said.All told, developments being lined up across the North Slope, with potentially several hundred thousands of barrels per day of additional oil production coming online at various time over the next five to 10 years, represent perhaps $13 billion to $15 billion of new investment, Marushack said.

http://dog.dnr.alaska.gov/Documents/ResourceEvaluation/20180202_Nanushuk_NAPE_2018.pdf