condensate field near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Badami pipeline has spare capacity, which will facilitate development of the Sockeye find. Armstrong said more tests are needed at Sock - eye, but he is bullish on the eastern North Slope, which has seen some oil discoveries but none viable for development except for the Point Thomson con - densates. Sockeye could change that because of its proximity to the Badami pipeline. The eastern North Slope has been a bit of a grave - yard for oil exploration and even the large Point Thomson natural gas and condensate find is eco - nomically challenged because of technical problems with its high-pressure reservoir. Oil exploration in the region has seen mixed re - sults. ConocoPhillips previously held many of the state leases where Armstrong and Apache are now drilling but sold the acreage after the company shift - ed its exploration focus to the western North Slope, where it is now developing Willow. Armstrong believes the area is underrated. Most of the exploration has been focused north along the Beaufort Sea coast where the geology lends itself to rock formations with potential for large accumula - tions of oil, like at Prudhoe Bay. Much of the geology to the south is flat, but that lends itself to the formation of stratigraphic oil traps which have been overlooked in conventional explo - ration, Armstrong said. With more advanced com - puter technology and three-dimensional seismic modeling, the potential of the extensive stratigraph - ic formations is now being demonstrated at discov - eries like Pikka, a billion-barrel field in the western North Slope. Armstrong called it, “the third largest discov - ery on the North Slope,” after the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River fields, but Armstrong also included new finds being made near Pikka where his group also led exploration. Armstrong has since sold his share of the project to Santos, Ltd., which is now leading construction on Pikka’s development with Repsol, which is still a part owner. The key to the North Slope is the large, deep un - derground source rocks that are generating the oil being captured in reservoir rocks nearer the surface. “When I came to Alaska 24 years ago, people were saying that the only large fields would be discovered in the Prudhoe Bay area, but when I looked at the oil being generated by the source rocks, I could see that only 5% of it can be accounted for in discoveries so far,” Armstrong said. “Where did the other 95% go?” he asked. The answer, he thinks, is into flat stratigraphic traps that could underlie much of the North Slope south of the Beaufort Sea coast where most explorers have been looking. With new tech - nologies, companies are now focusing on these kinds of formations. “We’ve had a 90% success rate with our explo - ration. With our partners, we have discovered 11 new North Slope fields with 400 million barrels of new oil, and we’re just getting started,” Armstrong said. “The Trans Alaska Pipeline System is running three-quarters empty. We can fill that baby up.”
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