Hilcorp plans more drilling at Deep Creek on Kenai Peninsula

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Hilcorp Alaska has received permission from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation for two wells, one a sidetrack and one a grassroots well, at its Deep Creek unit on the Kenai Peninsula.

Permission was granted in two conservation orders, both issued Jan. 14, approving exemptions to spacing requirements to allow drilling, testing and operating of the wells in the Happy Valley Beluga/Tyonek gas pool within 1,500 feet of the external boundaries of the Deep Creek unit.

Permits for the wells had not yet been posted when this issue of Petroleum News went to press.

In both cases, for the sidetrack, Happy Valley B-13A, and the grassroots well, HV B-18, the commission said the Beluga/Tyonek gas pool "reserves cannot be reached and efficiently developed by conforming to applicable statewide spacing regulations because of the narrow, discontinuous, and lenticular nature of the reservoir sands and their most prospective locations on the subsurface structure."

In Hilcorp's most recent plan of development for Deep Creek, filed May 1 and effective Aug. 1, 2024, through July 30, 2025, the company said it could potentially drill a grassroots well during that POD, "pending results of reservoir field studies planned for spring and summer 2024."

AOGCC's November production data, the most recent available, shows Deep Creek producing from seven wells, and averaging 2,808 thousand cubic feet of gas per day, down 21.72% from a November 2023 average of 3,587 mcf per day -- also from seven wells.

--KRISTEN NELSON