Might revisit Liberty area leases

Denver-based Savant Resources, which entered Alaska in 2006, drilled an unsuccessful exploration well on its own lease in the Beaufort Sea last winter.

Subsidiary Savant Alaska’s geologic target was the Kemik formation, and the well was drilled to a total depth of 10,686 feet.

One goal of the drilling program was to find out whether the Kupcake prospect was connected to BP’s nearby Liberty prospect.

Kupcake No. 1 was drilled just a few miles west of the Liberty No. 1 discovery well, which BP drilled in 1997.

BP mapped out the Kupcake prospect the following year using 3-D seismic data it had shot in 1995, but allowed the leases south and west of Liberty to expire in 2005. Savant President Patrick Shaw picked up those leases in 2006.

At the recent October State of Alaska Beaufort Sea lease sale Savant acquired a single tract at the eastern end of a Savant block of leases west of Badami and south and southwest of Liberty.

At the state’s October North Slope oil and gas lease sale, Savant won another lease, this one onshore and immediately south of Badami.

When asked by Petroleum News if it has any plans for the leases it owns near Kupcake, Vigil said the company had “no plans for the near-term, but if we have some success at the Red Wolf prospect, at the deeper Kekiktuk sands, that would produce some leads for those leases we picked up in 2006,” which are “up-trend from this winter’s activities.”

—Kay Cashman