Houston-based Furie Operating Alaska reached its planned depth of 10,400 feet and is making plans to do a natural gas production test in a closely watched Cook Inlet exploration well, state officials said Thursday.
Kyle Smith, petroleum land manager at the state Division of Oil and Gas, said the state receives daily drilling reports on Cook Inlet wells and said the well had reached its planned total depth and that an extended gas production test is planned.
Cathy Foerster, a commissioner with the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, said the commission has been informed that Furie is now logging the well and will seek a permit to flare gas during the production test, which is expected to continue for 30 days.
Furie was not available for comment.
The Kitchen Lights Unit No. 3 well is being drilled with the Spartan 151 jack-up rig. The well is near Furie's KLU No. 1 well that drilled in 2011, and which discovered gas. It was too late in the season to conduct a flow test on KLU No. 1, however. Furie Vice President Bruce Webb said earlier that the 2011 test was drilled to test deeper oil formations and the well was not suitable for a gas production test.
In 2012 Furie drilled an exploration well at another location on its Cook Inlet leases.
A second jack-up rig is also drilling in Cook Inlet. Australia-based Buccaneer Energy spudded its Cosmo No. 1 well near Anchor Point, on the east side of the Inlet, on Monday and is drilling to its first target, a known gas accumulation that overlies a deeper oil reservoir, also confirmed from earlier drilling.
Buccaneer is using the Endeavour jack-up rig, which it partly owns.
Progress on the two exploration wells is being watched closely by the industry because Cook Inlet is a mature oil and gas province that has been undergoing a surge of new activity, with companies like Apache Corp. and Hillcorp Energy acquiring properties in the region. Most of the activity has been onshore, however.
Furie and Buccaneer believe there are substantial undiscovered oil and gas resources offshore in the Inlet.
