Discovered in 1994, the Alpine Oil Pool has now been penetrated by more than 100 wells, most of which are horizontal production and injection wells. The pool began regular production in May of 2000, and has greatly exceed expectations: originally projected to produce 80,000 barrels of oil per day, the Alpine Oil Pool averaged 97,486 barrels per day during 2003. Facilities upgrades are expected to boost production during the next few years. Alpine is a model for future oil development; its facilities occupy only 97 surface acres, but it produces from about 25,000 acres (39 square miles) of reservoir. In 2003, development drilling at Alpine surpassed the 1 million foot milestone, with over 230,000 feet (nearly 52 miles) of horizontal well bore open to the reservoir.

The reservoir consists of the Alpine Sands, an informal member of the Jurassic-aged (Ellesmerian) Kingak Formation that lie between 6,876’ and 6,976’ measured depth in Bergschrund No.1. These are stratigraphically the highest sand units in the Kingak within the Colville Delta area. They are shallow marine, v. fine to fine-grained, quartz-rich sandstone layers deposited on a southerly prograding shelf, and elongated in an east-west direction. Gross thickness of the combined reservoir sandstone layers ranges up to 100’. The Alpine structure is a homocline that dips southwest at a rate of about 100’ per mile. This homocline is broken by several minor, northwest-trending, down-to-the-west, normal faults that average less than 30’ in vertical displacement. Porosity and permeability range approximately from 15% to 23% and 1 to 160 md, respectively.  No oil-water or gas-oil contacts have been observed. (CO 443A)