THE LINK: JULY 2024 18 Santos employed 2,200 during its winter season Phase One at the big Pikka project on the North Slope is nearing the halfway mark toward completion, Australia-based Santos Ltd. said, following completion of its first major winter construction season. Santos holds a 51 percent interest in Pikka, with Repsol, based in Madrid, holding 49 percent. Six of Pikka’s planned 43 production wells were complete in mid-May. Three of the wells have been tested with results comparing favorably with pre-drill expectations, Santos told the 2024 Macquarie Australia conference. Pikka is on 32 state oil and gas leases near the ConocoPhillips-operated Alpine field, which is west of the large Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River fields. The well production tests are important in confirming the potential of the Nanushuk oil reservoir, the source of most of Pikka’s oil. Santos will be executing the first major production in the Nanush, so the yield of wells is being watched closely. Some of Pikka’s oil will come from the Alpine C reservoir, which is found in the nearby producing Alpine field and is better know The longest well drilled so far at Pikka is over 18,000 feet. As in other North Slope fields the bulk of the drilling at Pikka is for horizontal wells where a drill rig at the surface drills laterally to a point in the underground reservoir sometimes several miles from the surface location of the rig. Santos provided additional details on its first season of construction at a May 2 briefing to a Resource Development Council breakfast meeting in Anchorage. It has been a busy winter season at Pikka, with over 2,200 people employed. Forty miles of pipeline were installed along with over 4,800 vertical support members, which support the above-ground pipelines, as well as over 3,300 pilings. The seawater treatment plant for Pikka is 62 percent complete, and the fabrication and installation of oil processing, drill site and camp facilities are on track for “first oil” of phase one in the first half of 2026, Santos said at the Macquarie conference. The seawater treatment plant planned to be located at Oliktok Point will be mounted on a barge as described in the plan approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in November 2022. It will have a capacity of treating 100,000 barrels per day of seawater for use in water injection for reservoir Santos: Pikka’s first phase 50% complete Photo Courtesy Santos Ltd.
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