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While Alaska has long been known for conventional oil and gas development, one relative newcomer to the state, Alaska-based Great Bear Petroleum Operating LLC, is making news in a more unconventional way. The private company, which has been focused on the exploration, development and production of shale-based oil on Alaska's North Slope for the past two years, has asked the state to allow it to amend its plan of operations in the hopes of making a faster decision on the viability of full-scale production.
According to Great Bear President and Chief Executive Officer Ed Duncan, the company's Alcor No. 1 well was drilled to a depth of 10,812 feet. "We encountered all three oil source rocks at the depth that was predicted and at the maturity state that was predicted," he says.
"We would like to run a longer-term production estimate on our wells," he adds. "If we are able to perform long-term production estimates, depending on those results, it could move our decision point forward by up to a year about whether to proceed with a full-scale shale oil development."
Great Bear has secured approximately 500,000 acres along the trans-Alaska pipeline corridor and is working with oil field services company Halliburton as its venture partner.
Too Early
While Duncan says that it is far too early to estimate reserve numbers for the project, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that Alaska's North Slope holds up to 2 billion barrels of oil and 80 trillion cubic feet of natural...