The Sept. 19 Petroleum News story titled “88E lone explorer?” did not include a North Slope winter exploration well planned by Great Bear Pantheon - Theta West 1.
So, in addition to 88 Energy’s Merlin 2 well, Great Bear Pantheon will drill the Theta West exploration well in state acreage adjacent to the western boundary of the Talitha unit, which GBP operates.
While no permits or a lease plan of operations have been filed with Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas, GBP was previously able to secure all needed authorizations and permits from the required agencies in a three and a half month period - not the norm for the North Slope.
GBP’s parent, Pantheon Resources, is looking for a farm-in partner(s) for its North Slope acreage, including Theta West.
The discovery this past winter of light oil in the Basin Floor Fan in GBP’s Talitha A exploration well, Pantheon says, will become an “area of intense focus” for the company in the future, with analysis showing the BFF is part of the “giant” Theta West play.
Pantheon says “this type of geological play and its volumetric size” is comparable to deepwater offshore Gulf of Mexico, West Africa and recent discoveries offshore Guyana. The company estimates a P50 contingent resource of 1.41 billion barrels of oil for “primary recovery” on its acreage.
Talitha A penetrated the BFF “in a structurally down dip location, approximately 1,500 feet structurally down dip and over eight miles from the crest of the trap to the northwest,” Pantheon says.
The “Talitha A test location of the Theta West project area contains two separate reservoirs, the Upper Basin Floor Fan, or UBFF, and the Lower Basin Floor Fan, or LBFF,” Pantheon says, noting the LBFF is 600 feet thick with “approximately 50% net sand to gross interval ratio.”
The Theta West reservoir target interval, based on seismic, the company says, “doubles in thickness at its (up dip) crest” and is “substantially shallower (7,500 feet) than at Talitha A (9,000 feet).”
Pantheon expects a thicker reservoir section with increased porosity and permeability at the up dip Theta West location.
The Theta West project covers approximately 100,000 acres controlled by Pantheon, its state leases held and operated by GBP.
Pantheon says the BFF and the Slope Fan system is part of the “Brookian deepwater fan systems which lie below the SMD and above the Kuparuk formation in depth and all proven oil-bearing from the discovery well at Talitha A and ARCO’s 1988 Pipeline State No. 1 well.”
The original interpretation was that this was a series of discrete fan systems, however, more recent analysis by Pantheon and its contractors indicates the “fan systems previously identified as discrete pay zones could in fact be part of one large continuous section that extends several thousand feet.”
Merlin 2 to the east
88 Energy says that although it reserves the right to re-enter the Merlin 1 exploration well in the future, this winter it will drill Merlin 2, an appraisal well to the east and closer to the shelf break where the company expects “enhanced reservoir thickness and quality.”
88 Energy’s post well evaluation of Merlin 1, which was drilled in March to a depth of 5,267 feet in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, demonstrates the presence of light oil in multiple stacked sequences in the Cretaceous Nanushuk formation (N20 and N18 targets). An additional new target, the N19 sand, that was not previously mapped, also returned a strong hydrocarbon signature following geochemical analysis.
88 Energy says it is looking for a farm-in partner for Project Peregrine, which holds the Merlin prospect.
Lots of oil
Incorporating Merlin1 results into Project Peregrine’s dataset, 88 Energy revised Peregrine’s mean total prospective resource to an estimated 1.6 billion barrels.
The objective of Merlin 1 was to assess three independent Nanushuk reservoir targets - N14, N20, and N18 - identified from reprocessed seismic data. All targets came in considerably deeper than expected.
Post well analysis indicated that the N14 horizon, the primary target of Merlin 1, was not intersected, as it was believed to lie about 600 feet deeper than the well’s total depth.
Merlin 1 was drilled by one of 88 Energy’s four Alaska operating subsidiaries, Emerald House. All the subsidiaries are run by long-time Alaska geologist and innovator Erik Opstad.
Merlin 2 pre-planning
With Merlin 2, 88 Energy is targeting a net entitlement mean prospective resource of 652 million barrels (unrisked), with the well designed to target the thicker zones of reservoir intervals.
Three potential locations have been selected for Merlin 2 and are in the process of being permitted.
88 Energy holds a 100% interest in the Peregrine Project, which also includes the Harrier prospect.
Chance of third well
There is a chance (no confirmation) that Eni US Operating Co. will spud its second Nikaitchuq North extended reach exploration well in second quarter 2022. The Alaska Beaufort Sea prospect is in a federal OCS unit, Harrison Bay block 6423, which is approximately 6 miles from the Spy Island Drill site in the state of Alaska Nikaitchuq unit.
In its 14th plan of development for the Nikaitchuq unit, which runs through Sept. 30, 2022, operator Eni told Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas that facility upgrades will be completed to support the planned Nikaitchuq North exploration well.
NN-02 was supposed to be drilled this coming winter, unless Eni requested another extension from the feds. No word on that yet.
