ConocoPhillips wraps up exploration

ConocoPhillips is wrapping up work on its closely-watched “Putu” exploration well in the Colville River area, testing prospects in oil formations where Armstrong Oil and Gas and Repsol made discoveries. If the Putu results are good ConocoPhillips has an option to expand its lease position, and pay the state $7 million. Meanwhile, Oil Search, which has acquired Armstrong’s stake in acreage, and Repsol, still a partner, plan more drilling next winter. ConocoPhillips and Oil Search/Repsol have an agreement to share data from the drilling.

Commitment for Pikka development?

State officials are watching Oil Search to judge the company’s intentions on starting development work on the Pikka project in the Colville, where Armstrong and Repsol found oil. So far the signals are positive. Oil Search is moving key people to Alaska and recently hosted Arctic Slope Regional Corp. officials to a visit in Papua New Guinea, where the company has operations.

GMT-2 startup is pushed back to 2021

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management published a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for ConocoPhillips’ GMT-2 project in the National Petroleum Reserve, an important regulatory step that could lead to the company’s formal approval of the project later this year. That assumes approval of the Final EIS. The process has taken longer than expected, and ConocoPhillips has had to push the estimated startup date to late 2021 instead of late 2020. A virtual twin project, GMT-1, is now being completed eight miles northeast of GMT-2 and is expected to begin producing later this year. Both will produce about 30,000 barrels per day at peak, or 60,000 b/d in total. The two projects are a few miles inside NPR-A and would be connected by pipeline to the producing Alpine eld, where the oil would be processed. GMT-2’s preferred development alternative in the DEIS involves a 14-acre production pad that could serve up to 48 wells.

Cook Inlet state lease sale on May 9

The state Division of Oil and Gas will hold its annual area-wide oil and gas lease sale in Cook Inlet and the Alaska Peninsula on May. In past years the Alaska Peninsula has drawn no bids on 4 million acres of onshore and 1.75 million acres of state- owned offshore. The Cook Inlet state-owned lands, mostly submerged, cover 4.2 million acres with 490,335 acres already leased. All unleased lands are open for bidding.

Beaufort Sea OCS sale in 2019?

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management called for tract nominations for an Alaska Outer Continental Beaufort Sea lease sale in 2019. The sale would be the rst Alaskan offering in the Interior Department’s 2019-2024 lease sale program. Agency officials said the ve-year OCS plan is not yet finalized and the call for nominations is to gather information so that Beaufort tracts of interest to industry can be identified. The formal sale announcement is yet to come.

More money for NPR-A well cleanup

Sen. Lisa Murkowski secured another $10 million for cleanup and closure of old National Petroleum Reserve wells in the recently-passed federal budget. In 2013 the senator secured $50 million for well remediation. Twenty six of the old wells remain. This winter BLM is remediating ve wells near each other in the Wolf Creek area of NPR-A but the remaining wells are scattered, requiring separate mobilization for each.