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Hilcorp plans pad expansion at Beluga River, more work to come
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Hilcorp Alaska has filed a lease plan of operations with the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas to expand K Pad in the Beluga River unit on the west side of Cook Inlet. Hilcorp took over as operator at Beluga River, one of Cook Inlet’s major natural gas fields, in 2016 and holds a 33.33% interest; the majority interest, 66.67%, is held by Chugach Electric Association.
The division said K Pad is some 2 miles west of the mouth of the Beluga River on Cook Inlet Region Inc. surface land and state subsurface. The south and east sides of K Pad would be expanded using 27,400 cubic yards of gravel, adding 4.5 acres to the pad. There would be additional infrastructure installed, including a compressor package and a communications tower. The division is accepting comments through 4:30 p.m. Aug. 17.
“This project is necessary to support additional resource development within BRU,” Hilcorp said in its application. The company said it plans to drill additional grassroots wells at the pad in 2023, and the expansion “will provide the space necessary to accommodate drilling rig access to development targets while also allowing safe access and uninterrupted facility operations.”
Hilcorp said the pad would be expanded south by some 150 feet and east by some 400 feet.
“The anticipated additional power needs of K-Pad will require the pad to be tied into the existing highline power,” the company said.
The compressor package planned for K Pad is one currently installed at C Pad, which will be relocated “near the northwest edge of the 2022 expansion area.”
A map included with the application shows additional pad work, a potential new pad southwest of K Pad, between present J Pad and H Pad as well as a potential expansion of E Pad which, the map description says, would be permitted through the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
There are both state and federal leases at Beluga, and BLM approves plans of development and operations for the unit.
Exploration well In late 2021 Hilcorp drilled an exploration well, BRU 223-24, from K Pad, in fulfillment of a farmout agreement between Hilcorp and Chugach Electric requiring Hilcorp to test formations below 7,000 feet. Chugach Electric owns 100% of the working interest at depths below 7,000 feet, and Hilcorp said in a proposed amendment for its Beluga River unit plan, filed in June 2021, that once the well was completed, Hilcorp would acquire a 33.33% working interest “resulting in an alignment of ownership interests at all depths.”
The well, BRU 223-24, was planned to be drilled from K Pad in the fourth quarter of 2021 and Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission records show it was completed Dec. 22 as a gas well, single completion, at a total vertical depth of 9,468 feet. BRU 223-24 is an exploration well, and results will not be made public until January of 2024.
Hilcorp said the well would target deep sands at depths below 7,000 feet but said that depending on results found in the deeper formation, it “plans to move up hole and perforate in the Sterling-Beluga Formations.” AOGCC production records show that BRU 223-24 came online in December from the Sterling-Beluga gas pool and has continued to produce from that pool, with production peaking at 175,192 thousand cubic feet, mcf, in January, dropping to 105,165 mcf by May, the latest month for which AOGCC production data is currently available.
Peak in 1968 AOGCC’s pool overview for Beluga River says the field is shallow, 7 miles long by 2-1/2 miles wide, along the western shore of Cook Inlet some 40 miles west of Anchorage. Standard Oil Company of California drilled the discovery well in December 1962, the commission said, “while exploring for a deeper oil objective.”
Regular production began in 1968 from the Sterling and Beluga formations, peaking in 2004 at an average rate of 157,425 mcf per day from 13 wells. Current production from the field - May is the most recent data available from AOGCC - averaged 31,837 mcf per day, 14.7% of total Cook Inlet gas production averaging 216,385 mcf per day. Cook Inlet gas production averaged 571,189 mcf per day in 2004, and Beluga, at its peak production, represented 28% of that volume.
The original Beluga leases, issued in 1963, were held in equal shares by Shell, Richfield and SOCAL, the commission said.
Municipal Light and Power purchased Shell’s one-third interest in 1997 and by 2002, ConocoPhillips had acquired ARCO’s share (originally held by Richfield). Hilcorp acquired Unocal’s one-third (originally SOCAL’s and later Chevron’s) in 2012 and became field operator in 2016. ML&P and Chugach Electric purchased ConocoPhillips’s one-third in 2016 and Chugach Electric acquired ML&P in 2020, giving it 66.67% and Hilcorp, the operator, 33.33%.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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