Hilcorp completes Seaview 9 well drilling

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Hilcorp Alaska told the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission Aug. 9 that it completed drilling the Seaview No. 9 well in July.

Seaview 9 will be the second well in the Seaview gas field at Anchor Point on the southern Kenai Peninsula. The first well, Seaview 8, began production in June. That well was drilled in 2018 and tested in 2019 but could not be brought online until a 2-mile pipeline was completed. Horizontal directional drilling was required for two crossings of that line beneath the Anchor River, and the HDD work was not completed until this summer.

Hilcorp’s statement on completion came in a request to the AOGCC to amend the conservation order allowing a spacing exception for the Seaview No. 9 well, based on results from the well.

A spacing exception is required to allow the company to drill within 1,500 feet of a property line where owners are not the same on both sides of the line.

The existing conservation order allows the company to complete, test and produce Seaview 9 in the Seaview undefined gas pool, but when the company applied for the spacing exception, it specified that the top of the productive horizon was expected at a depth of 4,562 feet measured depth.

In its Aug. 9 request to have the order amended Hilcorp told the commission that when the Seaview 9 well was drilled and completed in July, it reached a total of depth of 7,749 feet MD. The top of the productive horizon was shallower than expected, at a depth of 393 feet MD. “This revision will require notice to be sent to additional owners and landowners” within 3,000 feet of the wellbore, the company said. The original spacing exception application was sent to all landowners within 3,000 feet of the affected area of the wellbore, based on the expectation that 4,562 feet would be the top of the productive horizon.

The Seaview undefined gas pool, the company said in its amendment request, “includes all gas sands located in the Lower Sterling, Beluga, and Tyonek Formations.”

AOGCC has public noticed the request and tentatively scheduled a hearing for Sept. 20 at 10 a.m. but said that if it does not receive a written request for a hearing by Sept. 13, it may consider issuance of an order without a hearing.

- KRISTEN NELSON