By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Apr. 26 -- BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. has drilled the first pentalateral well at Orion, a satellite oil field in the western Prudhoe Bay area on Alaska's North Slope.
Well S-213a is currently on stream, flowing at a rate of 3,000-3,500 bo/d.
The five laterals encountered five different zones in the Schrader Bluff reservoir, which covers more than 32,000 acres and is thought to have held more than 2 billion bbl of OOIP (OGJ, Aug. 6, 2001, p. 36).
Multilaterals penetrate more than 26,000 ft of pay compared to earlier vertical wells that penetrated a maximum of 400 ft of pay, BP said. Gravities at the deeper-pay Schrader Bluff are about 18-22°, a bit lighter than those in shallower-pay areas, about 16-17°.