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Nenana basin seismic permit on hold, Andex says no partner yet
Patricia Liles Petroleum News Contributing Writer
Approval of an exploration permit to conduct a $3 million seismic program looking for gas resources in the Nenana basin in Interior Alaska is still pending with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.
PGS Onshore applied in May to DNR for permission to conduct a two-dimensional seismic program this winter for its client Andex Resources in the Nenana basin, a relatively unexplored play for gas west of Nenana, a Tanana River town about 50 miles southwest of Fairbanks.
Andex, a Denver and Houston-based company, holds an exploration license for nearly 500,000 acres of land in the Nenana basin. The planned seismic program, expected to take about 60 days to complete 200 line miles of data-gathering, will be the company’s first on-the-ground work in the basin.
Andex’s license approved in 2002 contains a seven-year term to convert to oil and gas leases, and contains a work commitment of $2,525,000, according to Matt Rader, natural resource specialist in the Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas.
Originally Rader said he expected to issue the exploration permit to PGS in late June, but revised that to early July. On July 14, he had not yet issued the permit, due to clarification required by agency comments that were submitted during the public comment period. “There’s no deal killer in it that I saw,” he said. Remote cabin program the holdup Seven comments were submitted by various agencies during the public comment period, Rader said. None came from individual citizens in the area.
The exploration permit will not be issued before Rader’s return to the office on Aug. 2, according to the department. The hold-up involves a conflict with a remote recreational cabin staking program being offered by the department’s Division of Lands this summer and fall along the Teklanika River, in the far southern portion of Andex’s lease area. Just south of Andex’s exploration license area, ARCO drilled a well called the Totek Hills No. 1 near the Teklanika River in 1984, to a total depth of 3,590 feet before plugging and abandoning it. That, and a well drilled due west of Nenana by Unocal in 1962, make up prior exploration work in the Nenana basin.
Andex has publicly said they have spent $3 million to acquire and reprocess old seismic data from that prior exploration work. In addition to its plans to spend $3 million on the seismic work this winter, Andex has said it will spend $10 to $12 million in following years for drilling and development work, hoping to tap natural gas to supply Interior Alaska.
When asked July 12 if rumors about Anschutz Exploration coming in as a partner in the Nenana basin project were true, Bob Mason of Andex told Petroleum News that his company was still looking for a partner for the project.
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