--> Discovery and Development of Kuparuk River Oil Field, North Slope, Alaska, by Dallam W. Masterson; #91024 (1989)

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Discovery and Development of Kuparuk River Oil Field, North Slope, Alaska

Dallam W. Masterson

The Kuparuk River field is located on the coast of the Alaskan North Slope between the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA). Among currently producing United States oil fields, Kuparuk is second only to the Prudhoe Bay field in production rate and remaining reserves. Discovery of the Kuparuk River field by the Sinclair/British Petroleum Ugnu State 1 occurred during the 1969 drilling boom that followed announcement of the Prudhoe Bay discovery in 1968. The Kuparuk discovery well was located on a large anticline that had already been tested by two unsuccessful wells to the west, where the Kuparuk River Formation is thin or absent. The Ugnu State 1 was drilling as Sinclair was merged into the Atlantic Richfield Company (n w ARCO), and was the last well Sinclair ever operated; ironically, the Ugnu well also turned out to be the largest discovery in Sinclair's history, with estimated ultimate recoverable reserves of 1.6 billion bbl of oil.

The first well drilled expressly for Kuparuk delineation was drilled in 1974, and an additional 17 delineation wells had been completed prior to unitization of the field in late 1981. Since 1981, more than 500 development wells have been drilled and production has steadily increased to a record 321,827 BOPD in February 1988. The history of the Kuparuk River field demonstrates that even giant fields on obvious structures can be missed by the first few wells, and that many delineation wells may be required. Some of the development scenarios proposed for the ANWR coastal plain allow for only a few wells to evaluate an area more than ten times the size of the Kuparuk River field.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91024©1989 AAPG Pacific Section, May 10-12, 1989, Palm Springs, California.