Anchorage Daily News

Conoco Phillips expects to return to the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska this winter, with plans shaping up for two wells in a federal exploration unit created this year.

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Conoco will use both wells to look for new hydrocarbon accumulations to expand on previous discoveries made at Mooses Tooth.

The wells, Grandview East and Pioneer 1, are in the proposal stage, awaiting partner approval and the finalized companywide budget, typically released each December.

"We do not yet have final partner approval or even our own approval," said Michael Faust, offshore exploration manager for Conoco.

Should plans proceed, Conoco would build "an ice road that basically extends all the way to Grandview and then a spur off that ice road down to Pioneer," Faust said.

The company staked the well locations this summer and is filing for permits.

In 2001 and 2002, Conoco staked a Pioneer well and two Grandview wells in what is now the Mooses Tooth unit. Pioneer 1 sits in the southeastern corner of the unit, while the two previously staked Grandview locations are near the western boundary of the unit.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an arm of the Department of the Interior, oversees resource development and exploration within the NPR-A.

FRONTIER AREA

For the past decade, Conoco has been the most active explorer in the NPR-A, the Indiana-sized swath of the North Slope that lies west of the big oil fields. The company has permitted dozens of exploration wells and drilled at least 18 penetrations as of March.

Those exploration programs have had varying degrees of success.

Following an unsuccessful venture into more remote corners of the reserve in early 2007, the oil company moved closer to existing infrastructure last winter, drilling a well in the Colville River unit, as well as two in Mooses Tooth.

The results of those wells were supposed to determine how Conoco would proceed with exploration work this winter, Erec Isaacson, vice president of land and exploration for Conoco Phillips Alaska Inc., said last February.

Faust couldn't give specifics on the results from last season, but said they will guide the work this winter.

"At this point we don't yet have partner approval to release the results of the wells, but I think it's safe to say we're encouraged enough to come back out and drill a couple of additional wells," Faust said.

FIVE RESERVOIRS?

Mooses Tooth is the first oil and gas unit approved by the BLM in NPR-A. It grew out of discoveries made by unit operator Conoco, through its predecessor companies, and Anadarko Petroleum, which holds a minority interest in the unit.

Mooses Tooth could contain as many as five separate reservoirs.

Lookout, one of those possible participating areas, is a proven oil discovery in the northeastern corner of the unit, Isaacson said in February.

"Whether its all one big feature, or more than one feature, is in many reasons why we want to go out and drill more wells," Faust said.

Conoco is projecting to start petroleum production from Mooses Tooth after 2013.

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