he following update of oil and gas activity on the North Slope is in no way comprehensive—that’s a tall order for any single article. Instead, we have chosen a few projects and drilling programs that highlight recently completed work from 2022 and anticipated work in 2023.

The biggest news on the North Slope for 2023 is that Willow got the green light from the US Department of the Interior (DOI). Following the DOI’s approval, an environmental group immediately sued to halt the project, challenging the Biden Administration’s decision. While the lawsuit is ongoing, a judge denied the group’s requested injunction to halt work. As of April, the Willow project has broken ground on construction of a gravel road. According to ConocoPhillips, its next steps are continuing a review of the DOI’s Record of Decision (ROD) and advancing an internal approval process, moving steadily toward a Final Investment Decision.

According to ConocoPhillips chairman and CEO Ryan Lance, “This was the right decision for Alaska and our Nation. Willow fits within the Biden Administration’s priorities on environmental and social justice, facilitating the energy transition and enhancing our energy security, all while creating good union jobs and providing benefits to Alaska Native communities.”

The DOI selected Alternative E from the Willow Project EIS, which reduces the project’s footprint from five potential drill sites to three: BT1, BT2, and BT3. In its ROD, DOI further specified that it “disapproved, rather than defers, drill site BT5 and associated infrastructure.” The three sites may have a combined total of up to 199 wells. The “Approved Willow Project Description” sidebar gives a detailed account of ConocoPhillips Alaska’s authorized plans for Willow.

In February, ConocoPhillips Alaska submitted its twenty-fifth Plan of Development (POD) for its Colville River Unit. According to the POD, ConocoPhillips Alaska completed all approved development plans included in its twenty-fourth POD, including the CD4-597 opportunity well, the expansion of CD4, construction and start-up of the Alpine Power Expansion, and the CD1-33A disposal well, which replaces the now plugged and abandoned WD03. The company also completed an additional opportunity within the Fiord West Kuparuk participating area, spudding the CD2-361 producer in Q4 2022.

Much of the company’s plans for July 2023 through July 2024 are confidential, but ConocoPhillips Alaska did share that, at the Alpine Pool, drilling will continue for CD2-361 into Q2 of 2023. The company states: “With continued success on both the drilling and reservoir fronts, it is expected that a third well, the CD2-320 injector, will be spud within 2023.”

The POD also gave a summary of the now-completed Alpine Power Expansion, whose purpose was to meet future power demand. The scope of the project included installing a 16.5MW gas turbine generator, upgrading existing switchgear from 2000A to 3000A, and debottlenecking the fuel gas system to increase flowrate.

ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Colville River Unit produced approximately 657 million barrels of oil in 2022.

According to a March amendment to its 2023 POD, Santos has completed front end engineering and design and made a final investment decision in August 2022 to move forward with the Pikka project. It has updated its POD to include drilling forty-three horizontal wells at ND-B, split into twenty-two production wells and twenty-one injector wells for enhanced oil recovery. Also at ND-B, Santos will drill a disposal well to accommodate a grind and inject facility.

In addition to the drilling, Santos will install an infield pipeline the connects ND-B to the Nanushuk Processing Facility. It also plans to construct an 80-foot telecommunications tower at ND-B. The project’s schedule called for constructing ice roads and pads for gravel and pipeline construction between January and this month; constructing a boat launch road and pad and a portion of the ND-A infield road from January through this month; drilling at ND-B this month; and pipeline construction starting in November, with operations starting in October to produce first oil in 2026.

Hilcorp Operates Prudhoe Bay on behalf of itself and the other working interest owners: ConocoPhillips Alaska, ExxonMobil Alaska, and Chevron. It’s a massive development, and Hilcorp submits POD by area, including the Greater Point McIntyre Area (GPMA), Western Satellites, and Initial Participating Areas (IPA).

The GPMA comprises the combined Niakuk, Lisburne, North Prudhoe Bay, Point McIntyre, Raven, and West Beach participating areas, and its 2022 POD is in effect through September of this year. From April 2021 through March 2022, GPMA produced approximately 146 billion cubic feet of gas and 9.6 million barrels of oil, with an average daily production of 29,797 barrels of oil per day. Hilcorp’s plans for GPMA for the end of 2022 and into 2023 included drilling up to four new wells, potentially including two coil tubing drilling sidetracks within the Lisburne and Point McIntyre participating areas, as well as a rotary well planned for the Raven participating area.

The Western Satellites comprise the Aurora, Borealis, Midnight Sun, Orion, and Polaris participating areas, which between January 2021 and December 2021 produced approximately 27.9 billion cubic feet of gas and nearly 10 million barrels of oil with an average production rage of 27,314 barrels of oil per day. According to its POD, “Hilcorp North Slope, upon taking over operatorship of the Western Satellites, has focused on returning idle wells to service, optimizing production through the existing surface infrastructure, targeting reservoirs that had been under-developed, improving voidage replacement, maximizing MI utility, improving operational efficiency, and a strong drilling program.” Together these initiatives led to a 24 percent year-on-year increase in overall oil production from 2020 to 2021.

For the Western Satellites in 2023, Hilcorp anticipates completing up to twenty-six producer and injector drill wells, as well as four workovers or recompletes. Also in 2023 Hilcorp is continuing a three-well polymer pilot program at the Polaris participating area, which will “determine polymer’s impact on injectivity, [miscible injectant] utility, oil rate, and reserves.” Polymer injection may be used at Orion and Polar, if the pilot program data indicates it could be economic to do so.

At the IPA, which comprises the Gas Cap and Oil Rim participating areas, in 2023 Hilcorp anticipates an increase in drilling activity, completing up to thirty-eight wells; it planned eleven in 2022.

During calendar year 2022, IPA produced approximately 2,836 billion cubic feet of gas and 57 million barrels of oil per day, with an average daily production rate of 156,487 barrels of oil.

Hilcorp also saw success increasing output at IPA in 2022, producing an additional 157 million standard cubic feet of gas per day and increasing production by 35,000 barrels of water per day compared to 2021. According to Hilcorp, “These efforts allowed the IPA to remain on the improved production trend established in late 2020 and continued into 2021.”

In contrast to increased drilling, according to the 2023 POD, Hilcorp has worked through its backlog of broken wells at IPA and anticipates a reduction in that activity this year, though “workovers will be completed on an as-needed basis as integrity issues in the well stock are identified.” Also this year at IPA, Hilcorp plans to work on pipeline construction for Drill Site 18 and H-Pad.

In February the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas approved Hilcorp’s proposed plan for the Raven Pad Development Project at Milne Point.

The Raven Pad, or R-Pad, will be a new drilling and production pad that will require the placement of 262,200 cubic yards of gravel fill over 30 acres of wetlands, as well as widening an access road to accommodate a drill rig. Hilcorp anticipates spudding sixty wells that will provide access to 5,200 acres within the Kuparuk and Schrader Bluff reservoirs. Other facilities for the project will include a test separator building, a pig launcher building, an electric submersible pump drive building, jet pump infrastructure, gas compression module/skid, and primary fluid separation module. Pipelines from the pad will tie into an existing flowline that runs between Pads F and L.

Gravel placement was scheduled for the first two quarters of 2023, with gravel turning and compaction, culvert placement, and power and fiber installation anticipated to begin in June and finish by October. Work will continue at the end of the year, with flowline construction planned for December and running into June 2024. Other infrastructure construction is planned for March 2024, with drilling expected to commence in August 2025 and run to November 2025.

This year Accumulate Energy, which is 88 Energy’s operator, commenced drilling on Hickory 1 using Nordic Calista’s Rig-2 in March. Hickory 1 is an exploration well that will appraise up to six conventional reservoir targets. It’s located 400 feet west of the Dalton Highway and approximately a quarter mile south of MP 382. The project’s schedule as submitted by Accumulate Energy in December 2022 called for construction of a main ice pad and road in January, followed by rig mobilization and camp and support ops in the same month. Drilling began March 9, and demobilization of the drill rig, camp, and support operations was slated for April. Accumulate Energy plans to remediate the ice pad and ice road in July and August.

Assuming the well results are promising, Accumulate Energy anticipates flow testing of Hickory 1 in the 2023/2024 winter season.

In December 2022, Narwhal applied to the Division of Oil and Gas to expand the West Harrison Bay Unit to include leases owned by the company. Narwhal wants to add a total of ten leases—six acquired in 2016 and four acquired in 2019—to the existing eighteen leases that currently make up the West Harrison Bay Unit. According to Narwhal, “The subsurface resources extend across the current unit boundaries into the Narwhal leases. Expansion of the unit will expedite exploration and drilling activity, benefitting all parties.”

Narwhal states in its application that it has already invested more than $4.6 million on the leases, including the cost of the leases themselves as well as purchasing and reprocessing seismic data, ongoing technical studies, stakeholder outreach, and permitting programs.

Narwhal plans to drill up to four exploration wells in Q1 2024 in the expanded unit, if approved. Preliminary field activities—marine shallow hazard surveys, freshwater source lake surveys, an archeological survey, and gathering technical data—would take place this summer to support project permitting, planning, and engineering for the proposed 2024 winter program.

Expanding the unit “expedites exploration” in part because it would allow Narwhal to operate independently of Shell, which technically operates the West Harrison Bay Unit. According to its application, Narwhal says it has gone to “great lengths to try to reach an agreement with Shell to explore and develop the combined acreage that would be unitized pursuant to this proposal, but Shell’s unwillingness to engage in discussions with Narwhal makes it clear that action from DNR—specifically, involuntary unitization—is required to spur exploration drilling and development activities that are in the public interest.”

Those great lengths include six formal proposals from Narwhal to jointly explore oil and gas formations in West Harrison Bay common to the two companies or to buy Shell’s leases in the unit outright. “All of these proposals were summarily dismissed by Shell without comment or counteroffer,” Narwhal reports. “It is clear that involuntary unitization will be the necessary catalyst for exploration, development, and ultimately production activities on the combined acreage.”

As of press time, the Division of Oil & Gas had issued an extension on the public comment deadline to April 6 and a decision on the expansion had not been issued.