![]() Santos’ partner in the project is Spanish oil company Repsol. ![]() Santos acquired Oil Search of Papua New Guinea last year, which had been working to advance the project. The company said in a statement Tuesday that its investment will be $1.3 billion. The other, ConocoPhillips’ Willow project, has been delayed by litigation and a new Biden administration environmental review. Pikka is one of two major oil prospects on the North Slope. Pikka is located on state land, east of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and development is expected to generate billions of dollars in state and local tax revenue, primarily through royalties to the state. If developed, the field will significantly boost oil flow in the trans-Alaska pipeline, which has fallen about 75% from its peak in the late 1980s to less than 500,000 barrels daily today.Īlaska leaders and industry observers have long awaited the announcement from the companies, in hopes that work at the field will boost jobs and the Alaska economy. The money will cover the initial phase of development at what’s called the Pikka field, with 80,000 barrels of oil daily expected to begin flowing in 2026, Australia-based Santos said in a statement. Global oil and gas companies Santos and Repsol said Tuesday that they will invest $2.6 billion to move ahead with development of a huge oil field on Alaska’s North Slope. The company, along with Armstrong Energy, discovered the promising Pikka prospect. The company's Icewine project is located south of Prudhoe Bay near the Dalton Highway in an area being worked by several other small explorers.A drill rig works for Repsol at its Colville Delta operations in 2014. Geologist and wildcatter Bill Armstrong has repeatedly said to the Journal that he believes the shallow and long-overlooked Nanushuk plays are prolific across much of the western North Slope, a prediction that appears to be bearing out.Ĩ8 Energy holds more approximately 210,000 acres on the North Slope mostly around the edges of other industry activity. ![]() Italian major Repsol and Denver-based Armstrong Energy partnered to make the initial large Nanushuk find on the North Slope at what is now the Pikka project being advanced by Oil Search Alaska in the years leading up to the Willow discovery.īoth Willow and Pikka are multibillion-dollar projects each with the ability to produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil per day, according to the operators, and they have led to other smaller Nanushuk-sourced prospects nearby. Other down-hole characteristics show the most prospective sand zones are similar to those found just to the north at the company's Harrier prospect and will likely be the target for drilling next winter, according to Wall.ĬonocoPhillips first announced its Nanushuk-based Willow discovery in the northeastern NPR-A in January 2017 based on two wells drilled the previous winter. "Whilst the potential volumetric size of this zone is not yet known, the formation could be extensive based on initial interpretation." "Particularly encouraging is the apparent presence of oil in a zone that has not previously been targeted in the NPR-A," Wall said further. Wall said in an April 5 statement that operational challenges prevented the company from collecting hydrocarbon samples in the two most promising Nanushuk zones but the early results already confirm that the Merlin well "has delivered by far the best outcome of any of the five wells drilled by 88 Energy in Alaska over the last six years." The Nanushuk formation sands encountered by 88 Energy are approximately 500 feet thicker than those hit by ConocoPhillips' Willow wells, according to the company, and other potential oil and gas-bearing zones were hit as well. It is part of the company's Project Peregrine in the southern portion of the NPR-A adjacent to the legacy Umiat prospect, which 88 Energy also recently acquired. has indicated in a series of reports on early test results from the remote Merlin-1 exploration well drilled last month that the company contacted three zones of shallow Nanushuk sands roughly 40 miles south of ConocoPhillips' Willow prospect.ĭrilled off of "sparse 2D seismic," according to 88 managing director David Wall, the $12.6 million Merlin well reached a total depth of 5,267 feet and hit potential pay zones between approximately 3,400 feet and 5,100 feet. The leaders of a small Australian explorer believe they have continued a trend that is driving two of the largest North Slope prospects in decades.Ĩ8 Energy Ltd.
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