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Hilcorp applies to expand pad at Pretty Creek; more wells planned
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Hilcorp applies to expand Pretty Creek pad
Hilcorp Alaska is working on increasing production from Pretty Creek, a small west side gas field between the Beluga River and Ivan River fields.
In September the company drilled a sidetrack to the Pretty Creek Unit 2 well and it has applied to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas to expand the pad at the field.
The field has only produced sporadically in recent years and Pretty Creek Unit 2, the only well showing on recent Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission production data, is shut-in.
Once work on the sidetrack is complete, the field should once again have production.
Development drilling is planned next year.
Hilcorp said the pad expansion "would provide additional space to allow for production well drilling and increased gas production" at Pretty Creek, with development well drilling planned for 2025. The expansion would add 1.3 acres to the southern edge of the pad and require 11,600 cubic yards of gravel fill.
The expansion would provide space necessary for the drill rig and allow safe access and uninterrupted operations and would "support current and future exploration and development activities," Hilcorp said.
The schedule involves obtaining permits and conducting final survey activities this fall, followed by gravel haul and placement this fall, continuing in the winter of 2025, and reworking the gravel and completing the project in the winter and spring of 2025.
The most recent activity at the field was the sidetrack to the Pretty Creek Unit 2 well.
History Pretty Creek, brought online by Union Oil Company of California in late 1986, has cumulative production of 9.62 billion cubic feet of gas, with 98.4% of that volume produced before Hilcorp took over in late 2011 when it acquired Chevron/Unocal's Cook Inlet assets and became operator at Pretty Creek.
Just one well, Pretty Creek Unit 2, is currently shown on AOGCC production data, and in September, the most recent month for which AOGCC production data are available, that well is shown as shut-in, although it has produced sporadically since the field last saw regular production in 2019.
Original drilling at the location, between the Beluga River and Ivan River fields, was by Halbouty Alaska Oil, which drilled the Theodore River 1 in 1969, plugged and abandoned in that same year.
The well was renamed Pretty Creek 2 after it was re-entered in 1979 by Chevron.
AOGCC shows Pretty Creek producing from an undefined gas pool, with information on the PCU 2A sidetrack showing it targeting the Sterling and Beluga sands.
--KRISTEN NELSON
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