Repsol strikes largest US onshore find in decades

Spanish giant Repsol has made the largest US onshore conventional oil discovery in 30 years, the company reported on Thursday.

The find comes from drilling at its Horseshoe-1 and 1A wells in the Nanushuk play, part of Alaska’s North Slope. Repsol, along with its partner Armstrong Energy, estimates its blocks in the area could contain 1.2 billion barrels of recoverable light oil. Repsol owns a 25% working interest in the discovery. Armstrong, the operator, holds the remaining share.

Repsol has been exploring in Alaska since 2008, and it has made several promising discoveries in the past six years.

Drilling by the Repsol-Armstrong partnership in 2014/15 resulted in discoveries in the adjacent Pikka Unit, which could begin production in 2021 and yield 120,000 bopd. This week’s horseshoe discovery extends the play by 32 kilometres.

Repsol’s discovery renews optimism in Alaska’s oil industry, where production has been falling for decades. In October of last year, the Texas independent Caelus Energy announced an even bigger find offshore Alaska, which could hold in-place reserves of 6 billion barrels of oil.