88 Energy’s Yukon leases hold 90m barrel oil potential

Alaska-focused 88 Energy has estimated that its wholly-owned Yukon leases in the famed “North Slope” oil province could hold prospective oil resources of about 90 million barrels of oil.

This follows the fast track processing and mapping of 3D seismic it acquired in the first quarter of this year to assess the potential of three sand bodies identified on the leases.

The largest of the prospects, Cascade, is estimated to host about 92% of the total resource, or about 82.3 million barrels of oil.

It is interpreted to have been intersected in a downdip location by the vintage Yukon Gold-1 oil discovery well that was drilled by BP in 1993 and discovered two oil saturated sands in the Canning Formation with porosities exceeding 18%.

Alaska’s state government has also reported Yukon Gold as a significant undeveloped oil resource.

Thanks to the 2016 commissioning of infrastructure at the nearby Point Thomson oil and gas field, the company’s internal modelling suggest that the Yukon leases have a break-even development price of less than USD$40 per barrel.

88 Energy will now generate an inversion 3D volume to further delineate and de-risk the current mapping at the Yukon leases.

Last month, the company upgraded the gross mean prospective resource at the project known as Project Icewine by almost 1.15 billion barrels to 2.89 billion barrels.

This follows the integration of 3D seismic data into the mapping effort, which is now in its final phase of processing.

Farm-out of the conventional acreage is ongoing with the company still expecting to reach a deal before the end of this year.