The choice of Icewine as the possible position of the thermal maturity sweetspot came back to one person and one person alone, Paul Basinski.
If one of the recent items is on the mark re the history of Icewine then Paul ACTUALLY OFFERED Icewine to Conoco as a potential unconventional/conventional candidate on The Slope.
http://energy-pubs.com.au/oil-gas-australia/icewine-hopes-for-88-energy/
It was through one of these contracts that Mr Wall met Paul Basinski, who he said had helped Burlington Resources and later ConocoPhillips identify and acquire acreages in the Eagle Ford shale play in 2006 – before the official discovery of the shale in 2008.
“What Paul has and what he was able to perfect during his time at ConocoPhillips was manpower, resources, technical expertise as well was this concept of finding … the small part of shale that is going to be productive and economic even at a $50 oil price, which is what this ConocoPhillips acreage is,” Mr Wall said.
These were the skills
that led Mr Basinski to identify the Icewine project, along with two others, for ConocoPhillips and later for a private equity backed firm – BOTH OF WHICH PASSED ON THE PROPOSAL.
As we have researched as deeply as possible, right down to find some esoteric little webcast of Paul making comments at the last Alaskan acreage lease sales, this guy pretty much knew what he had with Icewine. He knew the basics were there. BUT what he didn't know was the VIABILITY of A BRAND NEW TYPE OF PLAY that had never been even assessed prior to Ice 1 being drilled.
THERE IS NOTHING LIKE the HRZ Unconventional play anywhere else in the world.
The geologic development over time IS TOTALLY UNIQUE in that the volcanic events/ash that occurred during the laying down of the HRZ appears to have CONTRIBUTED to the good, to exceptional porosity/permeability, by ONTRIBUTING TO THE DIAGENESIS of the primarily carbonates/quartz rocks.
Now there were some geologists that doubted the potential of the HRZ, and possibly rightly so without Ice 1 hindsight. BUT imo that would have taken more depth and probably a metamorphic phase to have altered the mineral compounds within these rocks to the point of making them unworkable in regards to a migrational path for these source rocks.
As appears history now shows, the various factors in the development of the HRZ (relatively benign diagenesis of the organics and mineral compounds) have led to the HRZ apparently becoming just one of the super highways (?) AND SOURCES to the large conventional plays on the north Alaskan coast. Hopefully something within the next annmnt confirms this hypothesis. But it has been geologically genetically shown that oils within these horizons have clearly contributed to these massive conventional plays.
Now its well understood that for these zones or horizons to be able to contribute in such a massive way to the very large reserves as we have at Prudhoe, that these processes MUST occur over THOUSANDS of acres, if not square miles/kms and this implies that such sweetspots/superhighways MUST COVER CONSIDERABLE land area.
Ergo the acreage 88E has literally put its foot on will STAY IN CORRI FEIGE'S MIND FOR LONG TIME TO COME !!!
Just one more thing before a BIT of sleep
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One also has to realise that Paul Basinski also appreciated the potential for this play to have a gas condensate phase potential as well IF he hit the correct PART of the sweetspot which obviously makes for better overpressure as well as higher flow and eventual liquids at the wells surface. In other words He would have known there was UPSIDE POTENTIAL in what his BEX modelling was telling him and imho THIS is why he went to Conoco and his private backers. However at that time unconventionals were only just becoming accepted and Conoco was well and truly committed to their more northern plays at Kuparuk and Alpine.
ALL GOOD FOR OUR LITTLE 88E eh !!!
So it remains to be seen whether the upcoming IRR shows/indicates an EVEN MORE efficient conversion of the hydrocarbons within the HRZ zone via the condensing process of the gas condensates, in other words the does the other 30% that resides in the HRZ rock over the 70% Liquids saturation then ALSO become liquids at the surface?
Not absolutely sure on this one as the 70% saturation may refer to the gas condensate fraction of the HRZ as well. BUt if they are talking a near conventional-like play ???
WE await the IRR
d
(20min delay)