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April 2011

Vol. 16, No. 14 Week of April 03, 2011

ExxonMobil in Alaska: Gambling on Point Thomson

On Sept. 8, 1969, Kingdon Hughes called and asked if I had seen an article about the North Slope acreage sale that would be held on Sept. 10. He wanted to know what I thought about putting a group together to bid on some leases.

I said, “Let’s do it.”

That afternoon myself, King Hughes, Ed Leede, Clyde Pine, Bill Kennedy, Deane Stoltz, president of Tipperary Oil and Gas, and Tipperary’s landman Phil Whittsett, and others met in Bill Kennedy’s office in Midland, Texas.

Bill called his partner Fred Chambers in Houston, and discussed joining in on the bidding. Fred was against it, so Bill declined.

We had no geologic data to support our bid. We just decided to gamble.

King flew to Anchorage Sept. 9. Not having time to type our bids before leaving (it took time to raise the required 10 percent), he used Western Airlines’ typewriter in the Seattle/Tacoma airport.

King turned in our bids a half hour before the sale started on Sept. 10.

We bid $262 per acre, or $66,200, on tract 145, and won it. We unsuccessfully bid on two other tracts.

We farmed out our interest in tract 145 to Simasko, who assigned it to Exxon.

In 1977, Exxon drilled the Point Thomson Unit No. 1 well on the lease, which was a Thomson Sand discovery.

—Richard Donnelly






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