|
Oil Patch Insider Anadarko orders new rig for Foothills gas drilling; Canada on guard against LNG tankers; Popp takes Poe's spot at AEDC
Partners Anadarko Petroleum, BG Group and Petro-Canada have ordered a new rig and remote camp from Nabors Alaska Drilling for a multi-year drilling program on shared acreage in the gas-prone Brooks Range Foothills.
Nabors Rig 105 and the camp will be owned and operated by Nabors, but are being built at the request of the operator of the Foothills partnership, Anadarko, “for a multi-year drilling program with extensions options,” Mark Hanley told Petroleum News Feb. 27. Hanley is Anadarko’s top official in Alaska.
The rig is currently being fabricated and assembled in Alberta and both the rig and camp will be delivered to Deadhorse on the North Slope by December in time for next winter’s drilling season, Hanley said.
The rig is a “mobile rig, not a wheeled rig, so it can be broken down and transported on rolligons,” he said.
The partnership’s Foothills well could be the first gas exploration well drilled on the North Slope — one that is actually targeting natural gas instead of oil.
A gas field near Barrow supplies that small North Slope community with fuel, but to date there have been no wells drilled in northern Alaska that targeted gas for possible shipment to outside markets via a pipeline that has not yet been built.
On Nov. 15, Doug Wilson, Anadarko’s Alaska exploration manager, told an Anchorage audience that the Houston-based independent was gearing up for a 3-D seismic survey in the Brooks Range Foothills this winter, with the intention of drilling a gas exploration well in the winter of 2007-08.
London-based BG Group, a 1986 spin-off from the privatization of the British government-owned gas monopoly British Gas, officially entered Alaska in January 2006, when its Foothills participation agreement with Anadarko Petroleum and Petro-Canada went into effect.
The agreement gave BG Group’s new Alaska subsidiary BG Alaska E&P Inc. a “33.33 percent equity share in 2.1 million acres of land in the Foothills area of the Alaskan North Slope,” the company said in a press release.
Under the terms of that agreement, each partner owns a one-third working interest in the acreage.
Anadarko has said that when it had its partnership agreements in place and was reasonably certain a gas line would be built, it would begin gas exploration.
Note: The State of Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas refers to the Brooks Range Foothills as the “North Slope Foothills.” The Foothills lie along the southern boundary of the North Slope, which technically ends at the Brooks Range.
—Kay Cashman
Canada on guard against LNG tankers; FERC about to start hearings Already at odds with the United States over sovereignty in Arctic waters, the Canadian government has set the stage for a second dispute, telling Washington it is opposed to the passage of liquefied natural gas tankers in the waters separating Maine and New Brunswick.
Two U.S. companies — Downeast LNG and Quoddy Bay LNG— have applications before the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to build import terminals on the Maine coast.
But Ottawa said the risks of navigating the narrow channel of Head Harbor Passage are too great, given the region’s fogs, high tides and a whirlpool rated as the second most powerful in the world.
Canadian ambassador to Washington Michael Wilson, in a letter to the U.S. regulator, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, said his government will not allow LNG tankers to pass through or use Head Harbor.
He said the dangers are too great in “the environmentally sensitive and navigationally challenging marine and coastal areas of the sovereign Canadian waters of head Harbor Passage.”
He said the Canadian government is “therefore prepared to use domestic legal means to address our concerns and prevent such passage from occurring.”
Wilson said the decision is based on studies of environmental concerns, navigational safety and “other considerations.”
FERC is about to start hearings on the two LNG applications and is expected to make a decision in about 18 months. The companies had originally hoped to start construction this year and bring the terminals into service in 2011.
Wilson said the Canadian government was taking its stance ahead of the hearings “so that proponents could withdraw or amend their project applications. ... This will save them from having to expend resources on projects which cannot proceed as currently envisioned.”
However, Washington insists the passage is in international waters, refuting Canada’s claims that the water flows through a channel created by Canadian islands.
The U.S. also contends that even if Canada does have sovereignty over the waters, U.S. ships would have right of passage under the international Law of the Sea Treaty.
Wilson assured the U.S. that Canada is ready to meet its natural gas needs by taking into account the “concerns of both our countries.”
—Gary Park
Popp leaving Kenai borough to head AEDC The Board of Directors of the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. said Feb. 27 that Bill Popp will replace its outgoing President and CEO Bob Poe, who announced his departure in January.
Popp, currently oil, gas and mining liaison for Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor John Williams, will take the reins of the private non-profit corporation on April 2.
“We were very pleased with the strong selection of candidates we had — our finalists were all outstanding individuals,” said Sophie Minich, chair of AEDC’s board. “Bill clearly stood out among them, and we are really looking forward to AEDC’s future under his direction.”
Once named Business Person of the Year by the Alaska State Legislature, Popp will be responsible for leading AEDC in its efforts to encourage growth and diversity in the Anchorage economy, AEDC said in a press release. He will set the strategic direction in marketing Anchorage to Alaska companies and global industries considering Anchorage as a place to do business.
—Kay Cashman
| 