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Division OKs Coyote participating area
13th Kuparuk River unit expansion adds ADL 392374 to unit; PA approved at 16,278 acres, 5.5% reduction from ConocoPhillips' request Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
In an Oct. 22 decision, Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas Director Derek Nottingham has approved, with a modification, an April 3 request from Kuparuk River unit operator ConocoPhillips Alaska for the 13th expansion of the unit and formation of the Coyote participating area.
The company requested addition of ADL 392374, a lease on the western edge of Kuparuk, to the unit. The addition of that lease was approved, adding 2,459 acres to the unit, increasing its size to some 273,935 acres.
The request for the Coyote PA was 17,228 acres, with 321 of those acres within the expansion area. The PA approval is for some 16,278 acres, a reduction of 5.5% from the requested PA size.
ConocoPhillips has also applied to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for pool rules for Coyote.
Nanushuk The division said oil charged Coyote sands within the Nanushuk formation were first encountered in 1966 in the Sinclair Colville 1 exploration well, and again in 1986 in the Texaco Colville Delta 3.
In 1993 the Kuparuk River unit 3W-07 development well drilled through Coyote sands on the way to the deeper Kuparuk interval.
ConocoPhillips drilled the Palm 1 exploration well in 2001, encountering Coyote reservoir sands and taking sidewall cores which "provided favorable rock and fluid property data," providing the type-section for the Coyote interval.
Sinclair Colville 1 and Palm 1 are within the proposed PA area; Colville Delta 3 and KRU 3W-07 are a short distance outside the proposed PA.
Three wells have produced from the PA -- with the vertical 3S-24B testing the reservoir in 2022 and producing a total of 97,000 barrels over about 12 months, before being shut in in 2023 and later sidetracked.
The division said the first horizontal producer/injector pair was completed in 2023, with 3S-701A, the pre-produced injector, producing 38,000 barrels during its three-month production test, with water injection starting in August 2023. The associated horizontal producer, 3S-704, has been in production since April 2023 and has produced 666,000 barrels of oil, about 1,200 barrels per day.
Development plans The division said 30 to 40 additional wells are planned, half producers and half injectors, as part of full field development.
The 3S-718 and 3S-722 pair were drilled in the summer of 2024 and are awaiting completion.
Coyote wells will be drilled from two Kuparuk pads: 3S and "the newly constructed 3T pad," the division said. The majority of wells targeting the Coyote formation to be drilled from 3S, with future wells drilled on 1,300-foot spacing and fracture stimulated.
In explaining its reduction of the proposed PA by 960 acres in ADL 25551, excluding requested acreage in section 35 and 36, the division said it is including "only reservoir rocks that reasonably can be estimated to be drained by the proposed development plan."
The division said the lease added to the Kuparuk River unit, ADL 392374, likely contains potential hydrocarbon accumulations, even though ConocoPhillips did not provide "geological data over the portion of the lease outside the proposed PA" nor indicate it additional hydrocarbon accumulations are present, and thus the division included the entire lease in the unit.
In its 2024-25 plan of development for Kuparuk, ConocoPhillips listed -- among other wells -- six in the proposed Coyote PA area.
The division said ConocoPhillips plans to increase the 3S pad capacity by "upgrading the water injection line, the produced oil line and production heaters."
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