20 May 2014, News Wires – ExxonMobil’s Canadian outfit is considering plans for the deepest offshore well ever to be drilling in the Arctic.
Imperial Oil has raised concerns with some environmentalists regarding the plans, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The company proposed the project late last year to Canadian regulators, with plans to drill a well so deep that it would most likely take two to four years to finish.
According to WSJ, environmental watchdog Pew Charitable Trusts said the well could supposedly extend 9651 metres below the floor of the Beaufort Sea.
The news source quotes an unpublished Pew study which said the well could need “complex well casing, cementing and drilling plans to address the technical challenges of drilling deep high-pressure wells”.
A spokesman for Imperial told WSJ that drilling depths would vary and would not be specified until a formal application was made.
The leases where the wells would be drilled are in the Canadian Arctic, and are jointly owned by ExxonMobil and BP.
If all goes to plan, the joint venture partners hope to drill an exploratory well by 2020, which would be the first offshore well in Canada’s Arctic since 2005.
