AOGCC approves pool rules, area injection order for KRU Coyote
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Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has approved pool rules and an area injection order applied for by ConocoPhillips Alaska for the Coyote oil pool in the Kuparuk River unit.
The commission said the Coyote oil pool is in the easternmost portion of the Brookian Nanushuk formation and is the hydrocarbon accumulation correlating with the portion of the Nanushuk shown on the Palm 1 reference log between 4,270 and 5,115 feet measured depth, equivalent to 4,038 and 4,720 feet true vertical depth below mean sea level.
"The Nanushuk Oil Pool in the Pikka Unit, the Qannik Oil Pool in the Colville River Unit, and the proposed Willow development in the Bear Tooth Unit are all part of the same Nanushuk progradational sequence that the COP is in, but are located in further west facies that are not in communication with the COP," AOGCC said in its Nov. 27 order.
The Coyote oil pool thins in the west and expands in the east, with a presumed water-oil contact at 4,260 feet TVD, limiting the proposed development to about the upper 200 feet of the proposed pool. The pool also has a small gas cap which will be produced out, the commission said.
Production plans In the drill sites 3S and 3T proposed development area, original oil in place is 508 million to 646 million barrels, with 638 million to 810 million barrels in the "entire proposed affected area," the commission said.
ConocoPhillips proposed and AOGCC approved an affected area including a portion of the Kuparuk River unit and extending beyond the area proposed for the Coyote participating area, with the affected area bordered by Oooguruk to the north; to the south by Quokka and lands not committed to a unit; to the east and west by lands within Kuparuk.
Primary recovery is estimated at some 5% of the original oil in place, 25.4-32.3 million barrels, with primary plus waterflood recovery resulted in 20-30% recovery, 102-194 million barrels and further recovery with primary plus water alternating gas under evaluation.
Coyote will be developed from the Kuparuk 3S and 3T drill sites with 40 wells total, split between producers and injectors, using horizontal line drive waterflood and with all wells fracture stimulated. Waterflood will use produced water from Kuparuk and/or Beaufort seawater from the Oliktok Point seawater treatment lant.
Coyote production will be commingled at the surface with Kuparuk and Oooguruk production and transported to Central Processing Facilities 2 and 3.
The area injection order, also issued Nov. 17, authorizes underground injection for enhanced oil recovery at Coyote. An earlier 3-year temporary injection order was rescinded.
Santos-ConocoPhillips issues The commission said Oil Search (Alaska), a subsidiary of Santos Ltd., submitted comments objecting to continued confidentiality of the KRU 3S-701/701A and KRU 3S-704 as those wells are in production and requested a 1-mile setback at the property line between Quokka and Kuparuk instead of the 500-foot setback in the agency's regulations.
On the issue of confidentiality of wells, the commission said wells producing from Coyote, 3S-24B, 3S-701, 3S-701A and 3S-704, "were all properly classified as exploratory wells when they were permitted and drilled" and therefore data -- except production volumes -- must be held confidential for 24 months as required by state statutes.
Confidentiality for 3S-24B, where Coyote production began in January 2022, expired in January 2024, the commission said, and data has been released to the public. Data for 3S-701, 3S-701A and 3S-704 will be released in March and April 2025. Coyote production began from 3S-701A in March 2023 and from 3S-704 in April 2023.
On the property-line issue, the commission said Santos provided no evidence that an increase from 500 feet to 1 mile at the property line "over a tenfold increase, is necessary to protect its correlative rights."
--KRISTEN NELSON
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