VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 4 | FALL 2025
VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2024
EXPLORATION CONTINUES ACROSS NORTH SLOPE
Pantheon Resources, Hilcorp continue push for increased drilling BY TIM BRADNER UK-BASED PANTHEON RESOURCES PLC IS CONTINUING TESTING OF OIL AND GAS RESOURC- ES DISCOVERED IN THE CENTRAL NORTH SLOPE SOUTH OF THE PRUDHOE BAY FIELD. In early October, the company announced successful completion of the hydraulic frac- ture stimulation on its Dubhe-1 well. The Nabors 105AC rig was used on the Dubhe-1 lateral, which was successfully drilled to a total measured depth of 15,800 feet, logged and cased back to the surface. The lateral well now provides about 5,200 feet of the wellbore entirely within the SMD-B target reservoir. The stimulation consisted of 25 individual "plug and perfo- rate" stages of approximately 200 feet each. The program proceeded in line with ex- pectations, Pantheon said: “This represents an excellent result given Pantheon's limited prior experience treating this specific res- ervoir and using a full set of new contrac- tors, including some that had not previously worked in Alaska.” The company is now preparing plugs set in the wellbore to separate the fracture sim- ulation stages, which are being drilled out with coiled-tubing equipment. The well is being connected to a temporary well testing system for the flow-testing operations. "We are extremely pleased with the suc- cess of the operations so far,” said Erich Kru- manocker, Chief Development Officer at Pantheon. “The stimulation was performed as planned, increasing our confidence in achieving the objectives of the forthcoming flow testing." In another development, Hilcorp Alas- ka is working on further drilling at Point Thomson, the large gas and condensate field east on the eastern North Slope, about 60
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miles east of Prudhoe Bay. A new gas and condensate production well at a new drill site is planned for 2026 that is expected to add production and bring Point Thomson production to near 10,000 barrels per day of condensate, a natural gas liquid. It is the first new well drilled at Point Thomson since 2016 and is an expensive project budgeted at $180 million, Hilcorp said at the Alaska Oil & Gas Association conference. Logistics are a major part of what makes it expensive, the company said. Doyon Drilling’s Rig 15, previously on Spy Island in the Nikaitchuq field was re- cently moved by barge in a major sealift to Point Thomson. Preparations are underway for drilling to commence this winter and will also require an expenditure of $40 mil- lion for an ice road to be built to the location from Deadhorse, which is at Prudhoe Bay. Point Thomson is now producing about 4,000 barrels per day of condensate and has been short of its 10,000 barrels per day production goal because of technical chal- lenges in producing and injecting produced gas back into the high-pressure reservoir at Point Thomson. The new well is planned to bring pro- duction to the target of 10,000. First oil from
the new well is anticipated for the second half of 2026. The Point Thomson asset also includes a 22-mile pipeline that connects the field with the 25-mile Badami pipeline at the small Badami oil field at essentially the halfway point between Point Thomp- son and the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) Pump Station One at Prudhoe Bay. Hilcorp’s acquisition of BP’s Alaska assets included its share of Point Thomson. Exxon- Mobil was previously the Point Thomson field operator but has passed that responsi- bility to Hilcorp, which is known for its abil- ity to improve the value of producing assets through efficiency and investment. Point Thomson has an estimated 8 tril- lion cubic feet of natural gas as well as sev- eral hundred million barrels of the liquid condensates now being produced. The gas reserves at Point Thomson are a major part of the confirmed 35 trillion cu- bic feet of reserves on the North Slope that could support the proposed large Alaska LNG Project, which includes an 800-mile, 42-inch gas pipeline built from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska. The remain- ing confirmed gas reserves on the Slope needed to support the LNG project and pipeline are in the Prudhoe Bay field.
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