Interrelationships Between In-Situ Gas Hydrates and Heavy Oil Occurrences on the North Slope of Alaska

Strongly dispersive noise from surface waves can be attenuated on seismic records by Flexfil, a new prestack process which uses wavelet spreading rather than velocity as the criterion for noise discrimination. The process comprises three steps: trace‐by‐trace compression to collapse the noise to a narrow fan in time‐offset (t-x) space; muting of the noise in this narrow fan; and inverse compression to recompress the reflection signals. The process will work on spatially undersampled data. The compression is accomplished by a frequency‐domain, linear operator which is independent of trace offset. This operator is the basis of a robust method of dispersion estimation. A flexural ice wave occurs on data recorded on floating ice in the near offshore of the North Slope of Alaska. It is both highly dispersed and of broad frequency bandwidth. Application of Flexfil to these data can increase the signal‐to‐noise ratio up to 20 dB. A noise analysis obtained from a microspread record is ideal to use for dispersion estimation. Production seismic records can also be used for dispersion estimation, with less accurate results. The method applied to field data examples from Alaska demonstrates significant improvement in data quality, especially in the shallow section.

Download Full-text

InSAR measurements of surface deformation over permafrost on the North Slope of Alaska

Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres ◽

10.1029/2009jf001547 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 115 (F3) ◽

Cited By ~ 80

Author(s):

Lin Liu ◽

Tingjun Zhang ◽

John Wahr

Keyword(s):

Surface Deformation ◽

North Slope ◽

The North ◽

North Slope Of Alaska

Download Full-text

Cloud Properties over the North Slope of Alaska: Identifying the Prevailing Meteorological Regimes

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-11-00636.1 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 25 (23) ◽

pp. 8238-8258 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Johannes Mülmenstädt ◽

Dan Lubin ◽

Lynn M. Russell ◽

Andrew M. Vogelmann

Keyword(s):

Time Series ◽

Climate Model ◽

North Slope ◽

Test Cases ◽

Synoptic Scale ◽

Long Time Series ◽

The North ◽

Cloud Properties ◽

North Slope Of Alaska ◽

Long Time

Abstract Long time series of Arctic atmospheric measurements are assembled into meteorological categories that can serve as test cases for climate model evaluation. The meteorological categories are established by applying an objective k-means clustering algorithm to 11 years of standard surface-meteorological observations collected from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2010 at the North Slope of Alaska (NSA) site of the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM). Four meteorological categories emerge. These meteorological categories constitute the first classification by meteorological regime of a long time series of Arctic meteorological conditions. The synoptic-scale patterns associated with each category, which include well-known synoptic features such as the Aleutian low and Beaufort Sea high, are used to explain the conditions at the NSA site. Cloud properties, which are not used as inputs to the k-means clustering, are found to differ significantly between the regimes and are also well explained by the synoptic-scale influences in each regime. Since the data available at the ARM NSA site include a wealth of cloud observations, this classification is well suited for model–observation comparison studies. Each category comprises an ensemble of test cases covering a representative range in variables describing atmospheric structure, moisture content, and cloud properties. This classification is offered as a complement to standard case-study evaluation of climate model parameterizations, in which models are compared against limited realizations of the Earth–atmosphere system (e.g., from detailed aircraft measurements).

Download Full-text

Underbalanced Drilling with Coiled Tubing: A Case Study on the Alaskan North Slope, Which Proves the Benefits of Drilling a Straight Hole

10.2118/204418-ms ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Antoni Miszewski ◽

Adam Miszewski ◽

Richard Stevens ◽

Matteo Gemignani

Keyword(s):

Relative Effectiveness ◽

Shallow Depth ◽

North Slope ◽

Coiled Tubing ◽

The North ◽

North Slope Of Alaska ◽

Minimum Requirements ◽

Bottom Hole Assembly ◽

Alaskan North Slope ◽

Future Work

Abstract A set of 5 wells were to be drilled with directional Coiled Tubing Drilling (CTD) on the North Slope of Alaska. The particular challenges of these wells were the fact that the desired laterals were targeted to be at least 6000ft long, at a shallow depth. Almost twice the length of laterals that are regularly drilled at deeper depths. The shallow depth meant that 2 of the 5 wells involved a casing exit through 3 casings which had never been attempted before. After drilling, the wells were completed with a slotted liner, run on coiled tubing. This required a very smooth and straight wellbore so that the liner could be run as far as the lateral had been drilled. Various methods were considered to increase lateral reach, including, running an extended reach tool, using friction reducer, increasing the coiled tubing size and using a drilling Bottom Hole Assembly (BHA) that could drill a very straight well path. All of these options were modelled with tubing forces software, and their relative effectiveness was evaluated. The drilling field results easily exceeded the minimum requirements for success. This project demonstrated record breaking lateral lengths, a record length of liner run on coiled tubing in a single run, and a triple casing exit. The data gained from this project can be used to fine-tune the modelling for future work of a similar nature.

Download Full-text