Hilcorp seeks six-month surfactant test at Prudhoe Bay wells

Hilcorp Alaska won approval for a six-month surfactant injectivity test at three wells in the Schrader Bluff oil pool, a small but important pilot in the Orion development area of the Prudhoe Bay unit. The filing, submitted May 1, got administrative approval from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission on June 9.

The test is designed to determine whether surfactant-enhanced waterflooding can improve oil recovery in one of Prudhoe Bay’s mature production areas. That matters because Schrader Bluff sits inside a field where operators have spent years pushing incremental gains from existing wells, pipelines and processing facilities rather than building from scratch.

Orion is one of five western satellite participating areas in the Prudhoe Bay Unit, alongside Aurora, Borealis, Midnight Sun and Polaris. Hilcorp’s 2026 plan of development says Orion reservoir development began in December 2001, production started in April 2002, water injection began in December 2003 and Prudhoe Bay miscible injectant for water-alternating-gas recovery has been used there since October 2006. Orion production is processed at Gathering Center 2, where monthly well testing and allocation changes reflect the effort needed to keep mature production steady.

That long operating history is why the surfactant pilot stands out. Surfactants are not currently approved as an injection fluid in the area’s injection order, and the company has not yet shown that the chemistry is effective enough for routine field use. In other words, this is still an experiment, not a standard operating practice.

If the test works, the payoff could go beyond a modest lift in barrels. A successful surfactant program could help Hilcorp stretch the life of existing Prudhoe Bay infrastructure, support more maintenance and service work, and keep contractors engaged in a part of the North Slope economy that depends heavily on steady oilfield activity. If the chemistry does not perform as expected, the result would still give the company and regulators data on how to manage a mature reservoir with tighter margins.

The request also fits a broader pattern of regulatory work around Schrader Bluff. In February 2025, Hilcorp asked the commission to expand the map extent of the Schrader Bluff Oil Pool and its associated Area Injection Order in and around the Milne Point Unit, including the Nikaitchuq Unit, to support unified operations. Conservation Order No. 477A defines the pool, and Area Injection Order No. 10C governs enhanced-recovery injection fluids there.

Hilcorp is already operating under a separate federal injection framework at Prudhoe Bay. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists Hilcorp Alaska, LLC as the current operator of the Prudhoe Bay Unit Grind and Inject Project underground injection control permit, effective from Sept. 1, 2017 through Aug. 31, 2027, with a modification dated May 21, 2026. That underscores how closely new recovery ideas on the North Slope are tied to existing oversight, and how much the region’s oil future still depends on squeezing more from fields already in service.