JV buying AVCG properties
A new three-company partnership is buying a major stake in the Alaska holdings of AVCG LLC and Ramshorn Investments Inc., the parties announced today.
In a $450 million deal, Thyssen Petroleum North Slope Development LLC, JK Tech Holdings Ltd. and MEP Alaska LLC have acquired a 90 percent interest in the Alaska oil and gas business of the two North Slope independents. Through the sale, the partnership will also acquire the local operating company Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. outright.
The deal includes $100 million in cash and more than $350 million for an initial development program at the Mustang field at the Southern Miluveach unit. The partners plan to announce details of the program later this year, but Brooks Range Petroleum Chief Operating Officer Bart Armfield said the companies expect to start work on a 15,000-barrel per day processing facility and drill three production wells later this year.
Although the initial development commitment is focused on the Southern Miluveach unit, the sale also includes AVCG's and Ramshorn Investments' stake in exploration prospects across the North Slope, including the Tofkat unit and Kachemach unit between the Kuparuk River unit and the Colville River, the Beechey Point unit north of Prudhoe Bay and a package of leases on the eastern North Slope near the Savant-operated Badami unit.
"Alaska attracted us because it remains a world-class hydrocarbon basin with considerable untapped potential, near existing infrastructure and because the Parnell Administration has created a very attractive investment climate for independent oil and gas companies," Thyssen Petroleum CEO Hamid Jourabchi said in a statement.
- ERIC LIDJI
ANS July production down 16% from June
With the summer maintenance season in full swing on Alaska's North Slope, ANS crude oil production for July averaged 420,420 barrels per day, down 16 percent from a June average of 500,525 bpd, that volume a drop of 7.5 percent from May.
The largest month-to-month drop, 35.3 percent, was at the BP Exploration (Alaska)-operated Prudhoe Bay field, which averaged 190,543 bpd in July, down from 294,537 bpd in June.
BP Alaska spokeswoman Dawn Patience said the drop in Prudhoe production was due to planned maintenance, or "turnaround," staggered from June to September.
"There are three major facilities undergoing turnaround this season," Patience told Petroleum News in an email: "the Central Gas Facility, Gathering Center 2 and Flow Station 3."
"These temporary facility shutdowns took more than two years to plan and take advantage of other planned pipeline shutdowns and the milder arctic climate," she said.
- KRISTEN NELSON
See stories in Aug. 10 issue, available online Friday, Aug. 8.
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