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XTO continues to work Middle Ground Shoal Company maintains production rates of 3,600 barrels per day by drilling more sidetracks at Cook Inlet field, platforms get upgrades Alan Bailey Petroleum News
XTO Energy, operator of the Middle Ground Shoal field in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, sets a great example for what an independent oil company can achieve in prolonging the life of an aging oil field. Although Middle Ground Shoal first produced back in 1967 XTO has achieved almost constant production from the field since buying two state leases and the field’s A and C platforms from Shell in 1998.
In March 2002 XTO Vice President Doug Schultze told Petroleum News that the company had increased field reserves by 42 percent and that reserves had “easily 10 and probably 15 years of economic life left.” For the third quarter of 2005 XTO reported an average daily field production rate of 3,650 barrels of oil. That production rate compares with 3,600 barrels per day when XTO purchased the field.
“A good acquisition company must be a great development company,” and XTO tries to double reserves at the properties that it buys, Kyle Hammond, XTO’s top executive for Alaska, told an Alaska legislative committee in April 2004.
The Middle Ground Shoal field consists of a shallow dipping east flank and a steeply dipping west flank separated by a faulted crest. Production comes from multiple zones within the Tertiary Tyonek formation.
XTO initially focused on developing the more difficult west flank of the field — Shell had worked the east flank. The company embarked on a program of drilling horizontal sidetrack wells. XTO had been getting reserves of 500,000 to 1 million barrels of oil per well, Schultze said.
On the west flank, where the strata are essentially tipped on end, XTO drills directionally through the formation and then goes back and penetrates the formation again on the bottom side of the well, Hammond said.
“In geologically complex reservoirs, the probability that the previous operator missed something goes up dramatically,” he said. Platform upgrades in process, ahead In addition to developing the west flank the company has since drilled into the east flank.
The company’s published operations reviews for the third quarter of 2004 and for the first three quarters of 2005 show that XTO has drilled a total of 11 sidetrack wells, with average reserves of 750,000 barrels per well. The company drilled two sidetracks in 2004 and one sidetrack in 2005.
Although the company had planned to drill a second sidetrack in 2005, a Petroleum News source said that further drilling will not now occur until at least the spring of 2006.
Bill Popp, oil, gas and mining liaison for Kenai Peninsula Borough, told Petroleum News in October 2005 that new drilling from A platform is under consideration for 2006, but not yet sanctioned. Popp also said that XTO is in the process of upgrading its crew quarters on C platform and plans to make significant upgrades to safety and fire equipment on both A and C platforms during the winter of 2005-06.
XTO has also converted four wells to injectors for water flood since it purchased the field.
An Oct. 20 Web cast a company spokesperson described XTO’s Alaska operations as being “on track.”
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