Overlooked North Slope formation may hold 120,000-barrel-a-day secret
Geologists say a potential major oil discovery in Alaska, coupled with a state geological analysis released this summer, indicate that an often-overlooked rock formation on the North Slope may hold significant potential for future oil discoveries.
Those experts have long known that the sandstone in the Nanushuk formation, an underground layer of rocks deposited from eroding mountains about 100 million years ago, had the qualities for oil and gas.
But while the Nanushuk has been penetrated by dozens of wells the formation is one of the first rock layers that a drill bit pierces in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska longtime geologists say decades of drilling has led to only minor discoveries.
That changed last year when Spanish company Repsol and Armstrong Oil and Gas of Denver announced that they had found what experts say might be one of the largest oil discoveries in Alaska.
Read more: http://www.adn.com/business-economy/energy/2016/09/11/overlooked-north-slope-formation-may-hold-120000-barrel-per-day-secret/