State approves Pretty Creek pad expansion

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Hilcorp Alaska applied in November to expand the existing Pretty Creek No. 2 pad, a request approved by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas Dec. 10.

The expansion area would be some 1.3 acres and use 11,600 cubic yards of gravel fill.

The division said the project will provide space to accommodate drilling of new development wells in 2025 with the goal of increasing gas production within the Pretty Creek unit.

The PCU 2A well, a sidetrack, was spud in September 2024 and completed in early October, providing gas production for 24 days in October according to Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission data. Prior to October, the field produced sporadically in recent years from the original PCU 2 well.

The division said the Pretty Creek No. 2 pad is on the west side of Cook Inlet some 5 miles northeast of the mouth of the Beluga River, within the Susitna Flats State Game Refuge.

In its application Hilcorp said the schedule for the pad expansion includes obtaining permits and conducting final survey activities in the fall of 2024, followed by gravel haul and placement continuing into the winter of 2025 and reworking gravel and completing the project in the winter and spring of 2025.

Original drilling at the Pretty Creek location, between the Beluga River and Ivan River fields, was by Halbouty Alaska Oil which drilled the Theodore River 1 in 1969, plugging and abandoning the well that same year.

When Chevron re-entered the well in 1979, it was renamed Pretty Creek 2.

AOGCC data show Pretty Creek producing from an undefined gas pool, with information on the PCU 2A sidetrack showing it targeting Sterling and Beluga sands.

--KRISTEN NELSON