Cash-strapped Fox sets sights on high-cost Alaska 11/25/2007
Alaska newcomer Fox Petroleum is a very small player in a very large oil patch inhabited by much larger, better-financed, better-equipped, and more successful exploration and production companies. Fi...

Chevron ups stake 11/25/2007
Back on North Slope, 2007-08 AK investment doubled, might again in 2009
Chevron is back exploring on the North Slope - for the first time since the early 1990s - and will start a two-year drilling program at its White Hills exploration prospect later this year. John Zage...

THE EXPLORERS 2007: Shell never really left Alaska 11/18/2007
2007 Beaufort drilling plans on hold due to a court order, Odom says will continue to listen, learn, work with local people
When Shell re-entered Alaska in October 2001 with the $2.4 million acquisition of 56,000 acres on the North Slope, Alaskans watched to see what the U.S. EandP arm of Royal Dutch Shell would do next. Fo...

THE EXPLORERS 2007: Chevron: working across the state 11/18/2007
White Hills exploration to begin this winter, company continues to look at Cook Inlet opportunities
Chevron, an oil and gas explorer and producer in Alaska for decades, will begin exploration drilling this winter at its White Hills prospect in the Brooks Range foothills on the southern edge of the N...

THE EXPLORERS 2007: Paspalof to head Alaska operations 11/18/2007
Pacific Energy buys bulk of Forest Oil's Alaska assets; word is California independent buying jack-up for Cook Inlet exploration
Pacific Energy Resources Ltd. is looking to make Alaska's Cook Inlet basin a core area of its operations. The Long Beach, Calif., independent closed Aug. 27, 2007, on its purchase of Forest Oil Corp.'...

THE EXPLORERS 2007: Alaska gets $2 million from lease sales 11/18/2007
An Alaska investor group and a new company dominated the State of Alaska's annual North Slope and Beaufort Sea areawide lease sales. When bids were read Oct. 24 in Anchorage by Acting Director of the...

Seven drilling ANS exploration wells 11/18/2007
Gas target of two Anadarko's wells; four small independents to drill; Chevron starts multi-year exploratory program in Foothills
Seven oil and gas companies plan to drill exploration wells on Alaska's North Slope this winter; an eighth company is moving forward with plans to re-enter an old exploration well on an undeveloped pr...

Fox Petroleum acquires Cook Inlet leases 10/28/2007
London-based Fox Petroleum Inc. said Oct. 25 that it has "signed an agreement to acquire approximately 42,000 acres" of oil and gas leases in the Cook Inlet region. Fox announced acquisition of some 3...

Alaska gets $2M in bids 10/28/2007
Bidders at Beaufort, North Slope sales fill in around prospects, only 2 big bidders
An Alaska investor group and a new company dominated the State of Alaska's annual North Slope and Beaufort Sea areawide lease sales. When bids were read in Anchorage Oct. 24 by Acting Director of the...

30 STRONG: TAPS: Young after 30 years 10/14/2007
Over past 10 years Alyeska achieved 99.5% pipeline mechanical reliability rate
It is an unrivaled engineering marvel compared by some with the Great Wall of China. It has safely and reliably delivered incomparable wealth in petroleum riches to the American people over three deca...

Mobil's 20 percent share of CIPL split 09/30/2007
Pacific Energy Resources, which is acquiring Forest Oil's Alaska assets, will end up 50-50 owner of Cook Inlet Pipe Line with Chevron
As part of its purchase earlier this year of Forest Oil Corp.'s Alaska assets, Pacific Energy Resources Ltd. will become 50 percent owner of the Cook Inlet Pipe Line Co., the 44-mile onshore line that...

Chevron back again 07/29/2007
Plans to drill up to 6 wells this winter at North Slope White Hills prospect
Chevron - and Unocal, which it acquired in 2005 - have held leases on Alaska's North Slope since before production began there in the late 1970s. While some of that acreage is part of producing fields...

Final chapter in CIGGS regulation? 06/17/2007
Following the Regulatory Commission of Alaska's acceptance of the Cook Inlet Gas Gathering System settlement agreement, Marathon and Chevron have applied for a certificate to operate the pipeline system as a common carrier
It's been three years since Agrium, owner of the Nikiski fertilizer plant on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, first filed a complaint with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska regarding the unregulated operat...

Middle East oil company enters Canada 06/03/2007
Abu Dhabi makes all-cash deal for Pogo's Canadian assets, including major stake in Northwest Territories; Dominion pulls out of Canada
If all the foreign stakeholders in the Western Canadian energy sector, put this one in the surprise category - big-time. Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. or TAQA has made an all-cash offer of US$2 billio...

TAPS rates too high 05/27/2007
FERC judge says Alaska pipeline owners double-dipped to justify tariffs
A federal judge May 17 ordered owners of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline to slash nearly in half tariffs they propose to charge for crude shipments, a move likely to generate substantially higher revenu...

End in sight for massive TAPS pipeline upgrade 04/15/2007
Owners reveal completion date for Strategic Reconfiguration Program at Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. to federal regulators
Owners of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline told federal regulators April 5 that strategic reconfiguration of the 800-mile crude oil conduit, currently under way, will be completed in 2010, and asked for...

Chevron's revitalization 03/25/2007
Alaska plans include exploration programs and Cook Inlet oilfield rejuvenation
When Chevron took over Unocal in 2005, there was much nail biting on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula about what might happen to Unocal's Cook Inlet oil and gas fields. Announcements by Chevron since then hav...

Pfoff: Aurora Power on life support 03/18/2007
Southcentral Alaska natural gas marketing company Aurora Power has since its foundation in 1994 provided gas consumers with an alternative gas supply option to major gas utility Enstar Natural Gas Co....

Gas-Pro plans CNG production at North Fork 03/11/2007
Rising gas prices encourage NorthStar affiliate Gas-Pro to seek novel approach to gas production on southern Kenai Peninsula
In the summer of 2006 it was starting to look as if time had finally run out for Gas-Pro Alaska's North Fork unit, in the southern part of Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. An agreement with Enstar Natural Ga...

FERC legal team takes sides 03/11/2007
Shoots holes in TAPS owners' claims as tariff litigation moves toward review
A legal team at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued an opinion that owners of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline fighting in a Washington, D.C., court to justify the tariffs they would lik...

Agrium teams with Alaska Railroad 03/04/2007
Usibelli, Homer Electric also working Blue Sky project to gasify coal as feedstock for fertilizer plant, produce power for sale
Agrium is in phase 2, front-end engineering design, of its Kenai Blue Sky project, which would use gasified coal as feedstock to replace natural gas for the company's Nikiski fertilizer facility. In a...

Enstar moves forward on Homer gas line 02/25/2007
Looking at Cosmopolitan gas; drafts pipeline application for submission in March; if response favorable will start permitting
Curtis Thayer, director of corporate and external affairs for Enstar Natural Gas Co., told Petroleum News Feb. 21 that his company has drafted a South Kenai Pipeline Extension Application for a gas pi...

Shell building legacy 02/25/2007
Alaska 2007 program takes shape; environment, communities high priorities
A flurry of government regulatory filings and announcements in February provides the most visible sign that the clock is ticking towards 2007 field activity in Shell's exploration program for offshore...

Giard defends RCA Enstar/Marathon decision 02/11/2007
In a statement issued on Feb. 2, Regulatory Commission of Alaska Chair Kate Giard spelled out the reasoning behind the commission's majority decision to reject Enstar Natural Gas Co.'s proposed new Co...

Shell proposes 18 wells 02/04/2007
Company's MMS exploration plan targets 2 Camden Bay prospects, August drilling
Shell Offshore Inc. has filed with the U.S. Minerals Management Service the company's exploration plan for oil and gas leases in the eastern part of the U.S. Beaufort Sea outer continental shelf. The...