Great Bear Pantheon plans to drill an exploration well beginning this summer at its acreage astride the Dalton Highway south of Deadhorse. The company has filed a unit plan of operations application with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas for authorization to build a gravel pad and drill the Dubhe-1 exploration well some 27 miles south of Deadhorse in the company's Talitha unit.
Talitha is the southerly of the company's two units. Alkaid, to the north, is also along the Dalton Highway.
(See map in the online issue PDF)
The March 19 application signed by the company's chief commercial officer, Pat Galvin, says the Dubhe Pad, west of the Dalton Highway, will be some 500 by 310 feet and cover 3.56 acres, with a 1,400-foot gravel driveway, 5-feet thick and 50 feet wide.
The Dubhe pad and driveway are close to the Dalton Highway, keeping them within the previously disturbed transportation corridor. The location on the west side of the highway uses the highway as a buffer to the Sag River.
Schedule
The company's plan is to begin gravel mining and conditioning in mid-May, after break-up, with the gravel driveway and pad to be constructed May 15 through June 30, and the rig moved to the Dubhe Pad July 1, with a targeted spud date of July 15 and drilling July 15-Aug. 31, completion in September and flow testing October through December, with additional flow testing possible from January through March of 2026.
'The Duhbe-1 well will be one of three possible designs, depending upon the upcoming test results at the Megrez-1,' Great Bear said in its application. Options for the well design include 'a horizontal well drilled into an Ahpun East lower-perm interval'; 'a horizontal well drilled into the Ahpun West Topset interval'; or 'a deviated well drilled into an Ahpun East higher-perm interval.'
Following completion
Once the well is completed, Great Bear said there may be multi-stage hydraulic fracture stimulation with the length of flow testing depending on initial flow results and other considerations.
Once drilling and testing are complete the well could be plugged and abandoned, suspended in accordance with Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulations or retained as a producing well.
If the well is P&A'd or suspended, equipment would be removed and the site closed, and if the well is P&A'd, Great Bear said it would work with DNR to determine what level of removal of the pad and driveway is in the state's best interest.
Support facilities
There will be a satellite office camp on the pad with four-bed capacity for the company man and alternate, and sufficient space to offer shelter in place to the entire crew in the event of an emergency. Storage areas will include fuel storage, drilling waste or fluid components storage. There will also be maintenance buildings.
The crew will be housed in Deadhorse and shuttled to the well site.
There will be 24-hour phone and internet available at the site, with operational radio communications provided using fixed base stations and truck-mounted mobile radios, with small temporary communication towers at the site.
