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AOGCC expands Torok oil pool at Kuparuk
Deletes Torok oil pool from Oooguruk unit, where Eni no longer holds acreage previously held by Caelus prior to its sale of tracts Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
In Jan. 21 orders the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has approved adding to the areal extent of the Kuparuk River Torok Oil Pool at the request of unit operator ConocoPhillips Alaska and, on its own motion, contracting that acreage from the Oooguruk Torok Oil Pool, where acreage is no longer held by the Oooguruk unit operator.
This is an area of the North Slope formerly held by Caelus Alaska. In 2019, Caelus sold its Oooguruk producing assets to Eni and the more southerly portion of its acreage in this area, where it was developing Nuna, to ConocoPhillips.
In June 2019 ConocoPhillips applied to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas to include Nuna, which lies immediately south of Oooguruk, to the Kuparuk River unit. The Nuna prospect ConocoPhillips acquired from Caelus includes 11 tracts covering 21,000 acres.
“This transaction represents an attractive addition to our expanding North Slope position and will allow ConocoPhillips to cost effectively develop Nuna utilizing Kuparuk River Unit infrastructure,” Joe Marushack, ConocoPhillips Alaska president, said in a 2019 statement.
ConocoPhillips told the division in its application to add the Nuna prospect to the Kuparuk River unit that development of the expansion area through existing KRU facilities would not require standalone processing facilities and said the reserves in the expansion area “are not large enough to support the costs of full processing facilities.”
In its AOGCC application ConocoPhillips said the expansion would make the western, northern and southern boundaries of the KRU Torok oil pool equivalent to the current KRU boundary, allowing for development of the Torok over the area.
The company told the commission expansion of the Torok oil pool “will allow for development of the Torok from KRU 3S pad, and the newly named KRU 3T pad (previously known as Nuna pad).”
Previous plans Caelus, when it was the operator at Oooguruk and Nuna, sanctioned Nuna development in 2015 and built a new pad and a 2.5-mile access road.
Pioneer Natural Resources, the previous Oooguruk operator, had proposed Nuna development in late 2010, having drilled through the Torok formation for several years to target deeper oil reservoirs, but Nuna was too far south of Oooguruk to be developed from those facilities, and Pioneer wanted to build at least one onshore drill site and potentially standalone facilities. Caelus acquired Pioneer’s Alaska assets in late 2013, and by early 2014 was estimating some $550 million for new facilities and $800 million to $900 million for drilling, a price tag of some $1.4 billion for Nuna development.
AOGCC approved the Torok oil pool at Kuparuk in 2016, allowing ConocoPhillips to proceed with an oil development program from existing Drill Site 3S. The Torok pool at Kuparuk is in the northwest corner of the unit and the company estimated in its 2016 applications that development from DS-3S could access between 100 million and 500 million barrels of oil in place, with an estimated 5% primary recovery rate and a range of 13-55% recovery with enhanced recovery programs. Separate development of a hypothetical second drill site was estimated to access between 100 million and 500 million barrels of oil in place, with similar recovery rates.
Consistent development rules The commission said expanding the Kuparuk River Torok oil pool to include the acreage recently acquired by ConocoPhillips “is necessary to ensure consistent development rules.”
The Torok oil pool at Kuparuk “is defined as the accumulation of oil and gas common to and correlating with the interval within the Kalubik No. 1 well between the measured depths of 4,991 and 5,272 feet on the resistivity log recorded in exploratory well Kalubik No. 1,” the commission said.
In its contraction order for the Torok oil pool at Oooguruk the commission said that in 2019 DNR approved a request from Caelus to contract the Oooguruk unit “to exclude leases in the southern portion of the unit. On June 20, 2019, the DNR approved Eni as the new operator for the OU.”
The commission said its regulations require that an area injection order be restricted to a single operator, and since the current Oooguruk Torok oil pool includes acreage now operated by Eni and ConocoPhillips, the pool rules for Oooguruk and Kuparuk “must be adjusted to ensure consistent rules.”
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