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Yukon Flats exploration
Hilcorp plans to drill two wells in Doyon land in the basin near Birch Creek
Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
Hilcorp Alaska has applied to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conversation for approval of an oil discharge prevention and contingency plan for the drilling of two exploration wells in subsurface land owned by Alaska Native regional corporation Doyon Limited in the Yukon Flats in the Alaska interior. Both proposed wells sites are adjacent Birch Creek, a tributary of the Yukon River. The drill sites are roughly 10 and 15 miles northwest of Birch Creek Village and are located on surface land owned by Tihteet'aii, the Native corporation for the village.
Hilcorp told ADEC that it anticipates the exploration drilling to commence during the summer of 2025. Alaska's Division of Oil and Gas has approved the installation of two water level gauges in the Lower Mouth Birch Creek, for use in conjunction with the drilling operations.
In 2021 Hilcorp drilled 13 shallow stratigraphic test wells in the Yukon Flats basin, as a prelude to potential oil and gas exploratory drilling. A number of these wells were drilled near to where Hilcorp now proposes to conduct exploration drilling.
The Yukon Flats The Yukon Flats consist of an 11.1 million acre lowland area around the Yukon River, between the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and the Canadian border. Much of the land in the flats consists of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. However, Doyon owns some blocks of the subsurface, while village Native corporations such as Tihteet'aii own some of the surface land.
The deep Yukon Flats basin under the flats is filled with sedimentary strata that were probably deposited in the past 70 million years. And there are several fairly deep sub-basins within the overall basin. The relatively high temperatures in these sub-basins could be conducive to the formation of oil and gas. Hence the prospectivity of the basin.
Oil and gas assessment In 2004 the U.S. Geological Survey published a new assessment of the basin, suggesting that there might be anywhere in the range of zero to almost 600 million barrels of technically recoverable oil in the basin, with a mean of about 173 million barrels. The zero at the bottom end of this range reflects the fact that nobody has yet demonstrated the definite existence of recoverable oil in the basin. Natural gas resources could be anywhere in the range of zero to almost 15 trillion cubic feet.
A number of years ago consultancy firm Petrotechnical Resources of Alaska conducted an assessment of the Yukon Flats basin and commented that there could be an oil field on the scale of the North Slope Alpine field somewhere in the basin.
With its ownership of several blocks of subsurface land in the Yukon Flats basin, Doyon has long been interested in the potential for the discovery and development of oil and gas in its land holdings. In 2011 Doyon commented that seismic surveying had indicated the presence of a Birch Creek sub-basin with subsurface structures that could have trapped oil and gas.
Hilcorp exploration In 2019 Hilcorp entered into an oil and gas exploration agreement with Doyon. And in 2020 Hilcorp conducted an aerial gravity survey of the entire basin. Hilcorp has expressed a particular interest in exploration of the Birch Creek area and moved forward through the drilling of the stratigraphic test wells. Although the company has indicated an intent to conduct some seismic surveying in the region, the company appears to be basing its drilling plans at Birch Creek on existing seismic data.
The company's entry into the Alaska oil and gas industry a number of years ago involved a strategy of rejuvenating existing oil and gas fields, initially in the Cook Inlet basin and later on the North Slope. However, the company has engaged in some significant exploration in the Cook Inlet region, including new exploratory drilling on the Kenai Peninsula and some seismic surveying on the Iniskin Peninsula, on the west side of the Cook Inlet. The company has also acquired some leases with exploration potential in the lower Cook Inlet and in 2019 conducted seismic surveying over these leases.
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