APA Alaska partner discovers hydrocarbons on North Slope
- Sockeye-2 encountered a Paleocene-aged reservoir on state land.
- Porosity and permeability are both better than expected.
APA Corp.’s operating partner in Alaska discovered hydrocarbons in the Sockeye-2 exploration well on the North Slope.
The Alaskan exploration partnership (APA 50%; Lagniappe Alaska, an Armstrong Oil & Gas subsidiary, 25%, operator; Santos Ltd., 25%) owns 325,000 gross acres on the North Slope of Alaska.
Sockeye-2 was drilled to a depth of about 10,500 ft and encountered a high-quality reservoir with about 25 ft of net oil pay in one blocky, Paleocene-aged sand with an average porosity of 20%. The porosity and permeability are both better than expected compared with recent regional field analogues in the Brookian play.
Wireline logging is complete and additional data collection is under way, including core acquisition and flow testing to confirm permeability.
“While net pay is not eye-popping, 20% porosity is a strong indicator that suggests potentially cost-effective reservoir drainage across a larger area that will need to be delineated,” said TD Cowen analysts in a note Mar. 17 following the announcement.
Additional zones of potential pay were also encountered in the shallower Staines Tongue formation.
The Sockeye prospect is amplitude supported across 25,000-30,000 acres, and confirms the partners’ geologic and geophysical models, derisking numerous additional prospects in the area, APA Corp. said in a Mar. 17 release.
Sockeye-2 is the second successful exploratory well drilled on a 325,411-acre state land position. The first well, King Street-1, was a new field discovery with oil in two separate Brookian Zones.
As part of its 2025 capital program, APA Corp. previously guided Alaska exploration capex at about $100 million with the intention to drill one well at Sockeye-2 and pursue further success, TD Cowen analysts noted.
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
