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Hilcorp permitting new pad at Pretty Creek on inlet's west side
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Hilcorp Alaska is permitting a second pad at the Pretty Creek unit on the west side of Cook Inlet. The small gas field was brought online by Union Oil Company of California in late 1986, producing from a single well with production becoming sporadic and a second well brought online in late 2001. Clearly in decline by late 2010, the field was part of the Chevron/Unocal Cook Inlet assets acquired by Hilcorp in late 2011, at a time when the field had no production.
(See map in the online issue PDF)
Production since has been sporadic, with no production for months at a time, until Hilcorp brought online a sidetrack to the single producing well at the field, Pretty Creek Unit 2, last November. By February of this year Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission data show the PCU 2A was in regular production, averaging 1,596 thousand cubic feet per day.
Current plans In its most recent plan of development for Pretty Creek, filed March 10, Hilcorp said it planned two "exploration/delineation wells north of the existing Pretty Creek Pad," necessitating a new road and pad. Sterling and Beluga are the main objections with Tyonek a possible secondary objection and bottomhole locations potentially "outside of the existing unit boundary."
In its March 10 unit plan of operations application to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas Hilcorp is requesting authorization to build the Diamond Pad at Pretty Creek.
Pretty Creek, on the west side of Cook Inlet, is between the Beluga River and Ivan River units.
A map accompanying the application shows the proposed Diamond Pad in the northern part of the unit, northeast of the existing Pretty Creek Pad.
The division's March 28 public notice on the application requests comments by a deadline of 4 p.m. April 28.
Pad and road The application includes a new gravel pad, road, pipeline, pig launching pad and operational facilities with vegetation clearing and grubbing proposed for April; pad and road installation in May; pipeline and operational facilities installation June through August; installation of cellars and conductors, mobilization of drilling equipment and the beginning of drilling in September; and drilling of up to five wells completed by the end of the year.
The Diamond Pad will be a 425-foot by 400-foot gravel pad, the road will be 832 feet long by 40 feet wide, connecting to the existing Beluga Road. There will be geofabric laid down prior to gravel placement on the road to support local hydrology.
The project will include an overburden materials berm and a 40-foot by 60-foot pig launching pad.
The pipeline, 1,232 feet long and 6-inches in diameter, would be buried and tied into existing infrastructure.
"The project will support existing natural gas development happening in the area," Hilcorp said in its application.
Once the gravel pad is in place, a generator building and electrical building will be constructed on the Diamond Pad. Electrical cables will be trenched with the natural gas pipeline, providing power for outlets and lights, with transformers, switches, panels and communications devices stored in the electrical building. Equipment to be delivered to the site this summer includes an air compressor, air dryer, pad dehydration skid, compressor skids, produced water tank and communications tower. Hilcorp said materials for the project will be brought into the area from a previously permitted source on existing roads.
--KRISTEN NELSON
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