Permits filed for ANWR test well

ASRC Energy Services E&P Technology filed permit applications April 26 on behalf of the state of Alaska for the proposed stratigraphic test well offshore the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The timing of the filings will allow drilling during the upcoming winter drilling season should a drilling consortium be formed, Alaska Oil and Gas Division geologist Jim Cowan told Petroleum News in an early April interview.

In an April 23 letter accompanying the application for a miscellaneous land use permit, David Johnston, senior vice president of ASRC Energy Services, told the oil and gas division that his firm expects to be the operator of the well.

As per previous reports, the application to drill the ANWR stratigraphic test well was not location specific. Two locations in state waters near shore in the Eastern Beaufort are still under consideration, only one of which will be drilled.

According to the application, the SDC drilling unit will be used to drill the well. It is the same drill ship that was used by EnCana in 2002 to drill the Beaufort Sea McCovey prospect offshore Alaska’s North Slope.

The western well location is about 20 miles southwest of Kaktovik off Anderson Point and the eastern site is about 30 miles southeast of Kaktovik off of Angun Lagoon (T8N, R31E, Umiat and T7N, R39E, Umiat). The water depth in both locations is 25-30 feet.

Access to the drill site will be “from snow/ice trail/roads either from the Prudhoe Bay area or from the Kaktovik area. … Air access will be either from the Prudhoe Bay or Kaktovik area using either helicopters or fixed wing (if an ice airstrip is constructed).”

Ice roads “may or may not be constructed.” If they are constructed the route will be “outside of the barrier islands.” Roads are to be “on bottomfast ice to the extent possible,” the application said.

Expect to move SDC to drill site summer 2004

According to the plan of operation submitted to the division by ASRC Energy Services, site clearance and mobilization of the SDC unit to the site will occur in July or August. (The SDC is currently “stacked” in the Canadian Beaufort.) Fuel and drilling supplies will be transported to the SDC during the same time period.
The SDC will be put on quiet standby in August to avoid interference with, among other things, the fall whaling season and near shore caribou, seal and waterfowl subsistence hunts by North Slope Natives.

Mobilization of the SDC will be completed sometime between September and November.

In December and January a “snow road” to the SDC will be built from Prudhoe Bay or Kaktovik. If an ice runway is built, it will be done during the same period.

The well will be drilled between January and March.

The plan of operation said testing and demobilizing will occur in March and April, “as appropriate,” and the SDC will be demobilized, “as appropriate,” in the summer of 2005.

ASRC Energy Services held pre-application meetings in the communities of Barrow on March 30, Anchorage on April 8 and Kaktovik on April 16.

Story by Kay Cashman

Petroleum News Publisher & Managing Editor