Seals are provided by thick interlayered shales. This new work identified three potential reservoir horizons within the Cretaceous Nanushuk Formation: the Upper and Lower Grandstand sands, and the overlying Ninuluk sand, with the Lower Grandstand considered the primary target. This work will be used to by Linc Energy as they prepare to drill up to 5 horizontal wells during the 2012-2013 drilling season. and, more recently, Linc Energy, to develop a more robust reservoir model that can be more » combined with rock and fluid property data to simulate potential production techniques. Since 2008 UAF has been working with Renaissance Alaska Inc. The advent of modern drilling and production techniques has made Umiat and similar fields in northern Alaska attractive exploration and production targets. Umiat field was discovered in the 1940’s but was never considered viable because it is shallow, in the permafrost, and far from any transportation infrastructure. Umiat oil field is a light oil in a shallow, frozen reservoir in the Brooks Range foothills of northern Alaska with estimated oil-in-place of over 1 billion barrels. Biodegradable oil mud systems would overcome more » some of these limitations. Overall, oil muds have better temperature stability than water muds but their use is often limited because of problems with surface pollution, contamination of water zones and reservoir damage. Generally the corrosivity characteristics of the oil muds were much better than those of the water muds. Although the oil muds performed better than water muds at high temperatures, some problems were encountered with viscosity at temperatures above 450/sup 0/F and with filtration at temperatures above 500/sup 0/F. These tests revealed that most of the water muds had high viscosity, high filtration rates and poor corrosivity characteristics at temperatures above 350/sup 0/F. This included testing at temperatures to 550/sup 0/F and pressures to 15,000 psi. Over 4,000 tests were conducted on these muds to evaluate their performance at high temperature. These included samples of 9 and 18 lb/gal water muds and 18 lb/gal oil muds.

The best high temperature drilling fluids that could be formulated from commercially available materials were obtained from the five largest mud companies. A review of geothermal drilling in the United States has revealed that serious problems are being encountered with corrosion and degradation of drilling fluids in high temperature wells.

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