Tracking exploration
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BLM issues Merlin 2 drilling permit, Theta West 1 expected to be at TD
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
Winter North Slope exploration is moving right along, although there is no word yet from Eni US Operating on the third well scheduled to be drilled this winter, Nikaitchuq North 2.
On Feb. 9 Emerald House, operator of the Merlin 2 well, accepted the conditions of its approved drilling permit from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, clearing the way to mobilize the Arctic Fox Rig to the drill site in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (see map in pdf and print versions of this story). Among other things the operator has finished its 111-mile single-lane snow road between KRU 2P and the Merlin 2 well location in Project Peregrine.
Emerald House is one of 88 Energy’s four Alaska subsidiaries. They are run by Erik Opstad, vice-president Alaska.
On Feb. 9 Opstad told Anchorage-based BLM Branch Chief Robert Brumbaugh: “After reviewing all 404-pages of APD ID #104000811366 as approved by the BLM, Emerald House finds that the BLM’s Conditions of Approval and other general terms, are constant with our drilling program goals and objectives, as well as being in accordance with established industry best practices. In that regard, Emerald House accepts the Permit, without reservation, and intends to move forward to implement it by drilling the Merlin-2 well, which we now expect to spud in early March.”
Drilling, the company said Feb. 9, would take approximately three to four weeks, including wireline logging.
The Merlin 2 appraisal well is planned for a total depth of 8,000 feet and is targeting 652 million barrels of oil in the prospective N18, N19 and N20 targets that were encountered in the Merlin 1 well (drilled in March 2021 to a depth of 5,267 feet).
88 Energy said Merlin 1 well demonstrated the presence of oil in these multiple stacked sequences within the Brookian Nanushuk formation.
Pantheon: Theta West on budget On Feb. 7 London-based Pantheon Resources said its Alaska subsidiary Great Bear Pantheon expected to reach target depth in its Theta West 1 vertical test well that day or on Feb. 8. The company also said that “drilling is on track and on budget.”
As of late Feb. 9, when this issue of Petroleum News went to press, no further information was available, but Pantheon had said Theta West 1’s target depth was approximately 9,300 feet. The top of the formation was expected at a depth of about 7,600 feet with approximately 1,300 feet of reservoir thickness.
Theta West 1 was spud on Jan. 21 using the Nordic Calista Rig 3.
Pantheon has said it is targeting 1.4 billion barrels of recoverable resource.
Pantheon: Talitha A testing Pantheon said Feb. 7 that testing operations in the 2021 Talitha A vertical test well have been completed on the Lower Basin Floor Fan, a Brookian aged horizon. According to Pantheon three separate 10-foot intervals were perforated over 370 feet out of 600 feet of gross section, at 9,405 to 9,415 feet, 9,205 to 9,215 feet and 9,045 to 9,055 feet.
“These three intervals were individually stimulated and flow tested, producing high quality c. 35 to 39 degree API oil and averaging 73 barrels of oil per day over a three day test period,” the company said.
On the final day of testing, the well was flowing at a sustained rate of approximately 40 bpd.
“Encouragingly, the bottom hole pressure is near to the reservoir pressure, thus providing an indication of the production potential of this portion of the oil accumulation, which is at the distal limits of the field. Future development wells would all be drilled horizontally and stimulated with multiple stage fracs, meaning that flow rates are expected to be many times higher,” Pantheon said.
Talitha A testing operations commenced over the weekend of Jan. 22 and 23, and started from the lowest formation, the Lower Basin Floor Fan.
Next Great Bear Pantheon will proceed sequentially to the two shallower Slope Fans (which will be tested together) and the Shelf Margin Deltaic horizons.
Eni: No extension yet Eni hasn’t yet made its intentions public about an exploration well planned north of its Nikaitchuq unit for April.
In its 14th plan of development for the Nikaitchuq unit, which runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2022, operator Eni told Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas that facility upgrades would be completed to support a second Nikaitchuq North extended reach exploration well in second quarter 2022.
NN-02 was supposed to be drilled unless Eni received an extension from the feds, which it once did for two years. That extension runs out in April.
But as of Feb 9, Eni has not requested any extensions, per Washington, D.C.-based Sandy Day, press secretary for Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
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