Development well planned at Pretty Creek

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

On April 17 the Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas approved a request from Hilcorp Alaska to amend its unit plan of operations to drill a grassroots well on the existing Pretty Creek Pad 2.

Also at Pretty Creek, Hilcorp is in the process of permitting a new pad in the northern portion of the unit at section 27-14N-9W, Seward Meridian (see story in April 6 issue of Petroleum News), with plans to drill two exploration/delineation wells.

The existing Pretty Creek 2 Pad is in the middle of the unit at section 33-14S-9W, SM, and is the site of the unit's limited existing production.

Hilcorp acquired Pretty Creek in late 2011 as part of its acquisition of Chevron/Union Oil's Cook Inlet assets. At that time the field, brought online by Union Oil Company of California in late 1986, was no longer in production.

Hilcorp had sporadic production from the field until it brought a sidetrack online at the single producing well, Pretty Creek Unit 2, last November. By February of this year Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission data show PCU 2A in regular production, averaging 1,596 thousand cubic feet per day.

In its approval of the grassroots well request the division said the new well will be tied into existing infrastructure, with all activities occurring on pad.

Pretty Creek 2 Pad is on the west side of Cook Inlet some 5 miles northeast of the mouth of the Beluga River.

In a March 11 decision, the division approved Hilcorp's request to install subsurface piping and new infrastructure to support new grassroots wells on the pad. Proposed new infrastructure approved in that decision includes gas flowlines, electrical instrumentation, line heaters, separators, compression equipment, well cellars and conductors.

--KRISTEN NELSON