Alaska gas producer Furie Operating plans to test deep oil prospects in Cook Inlet that lie below gas producing reservoirs, a company official said Monday.
The company plans to reenter its KLU-4 exploration well, which has discovered gas, and drill deeper to test a potential oil prospect that has been identified, company Vice President Bruce Webb said. The Randall Yost jack-up rig will be used for the drilling, which is now planned for mid-2017. The jack-up rig is now in Cook Inlet drilling gas production wells for Furie.
Furie is now producing gas at its KLU-1 well and the new Julius R gas production platform, which is about six miles from the KLU-4 location. This is also near ConocoPhillips' producing North Cook Inlet gas field and its Tyonek production platform.
Webb said KLU-4 encountered gas in several intervals at depths between 6,000 feet and 10,000 feet in the Sterling and Beluga formations when it was drilled two years ago. The plan now is to deepen the well to test for oil in a prospect between 16,000 feet and 18,000 feet in the Tyonek and Hemlock formations, which produce oil in other parts of Cook Inlet.
If the prospect is productive Furie believes a full development could see as much as 25,000 b/d, Webb said.
Meanwhile, Furie has started preliminary permitting for a second platform, capable of handling both oil and gas production at the KLU-4 location, Webb said. If drilling results are successful for oil, the platform development work could begin in 2018, he said. If not, the gas discovery at the well could be developed alone.
Industry and state geologists have long believed that substantial quantities of undiscovered oil could lie at depth in Cook Inlet, which has produced oil and gas from shallower reservoirs since the 1960s.
In the 1980s ARCO Alaska believed it had made a discovery at depth in its "Sunfish" prospect, but subsequent drilling showed the find was not commercial. In the years since, more detailed 3D seismic surveys and results of other wells have convinced many, including Furie's geologists, that the deep oil may yet be found.
