Conoco stakes four NPR-A wells
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ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. has staked four National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska wells.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management recently posted notice of the Rendezvous No. 3, Rendezvous No. 3 South, Rendezvous No. 3 North and Rendezvous No. 3 North 2 wells.
ConocoPhillips staked the Rendezvous No. 3 and Rendezvous No. 3 South wells in lease AA-81784 and staked the Rendezvous No. 3 North and Rendezvous No. 3 North 2 wells in lease AA-81803. Both leases are in the federally managed Greater Mooses Tooth unit.
The notices, which BLM posted Sept. 6, show where ConocoPhillips is interested in drilling and how many wells it might drill, but ConocoPhillips must approve drilling plans internally and with its partner Anadarko Petroleum Corp. before moving forward.
In past seasons, ConocoPhillips has said, “Filing notice of staking forms is a routine action to provide flexibility as we evaluate and try to obtain regulatory approvals for possible activity in those areas, but it is not a given that anything will move forward.”
Among initial discoveries The Rendezvous prospect was among the initial discoveries announced after the federal government reopened the 23 million acre NPR-A to oil and gas exploration in 1999.
Then-operator Phillips Alaska Inc. drilled the Rendezvous A well on lease AA-81803 in April 2000 and drilled the Rendezvous No. 2 well on lease AA-81781 (which is directly adjacent to AA-81784, to the east) in April 2001. Both wells encountered oil and gas.
An un-stimulated test of the Rendezvous A in 2001 flowed at a rate of 360 barrels per day of liquid hydrocarbons and 6.6 million cubic feet per day of gas. A test of Rendezvous No. 2 in early 2008 “ranged from about 500 barrels of oil per day to as high as 1,300 barrels of oil per day of high API gravity oil” with gas production rates “averaged about 1.5 million cubic feet per day for each well,” according to the company.
—Eric Lidji
—A copyrighted oil and gas lease map from Mapmakers Alaska was a research tool used in preparing this story.
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