ExxonMobil in Alaska: Humble drills deep at Bear Creek

In the summers of 1955 and 1956, Humble Oil conducted geologic fieldwork on the oil and gas potential of the Upper Triassic carbonates exposed on the western side of Shelikof Strait between Puale and Alinchak bays on the Alaska Peninsula. (Puale Bay used to be called Cold Bay.) The team also visited other Triassic outcrops along the east and west side of Cook Inlet.

The Humble field party was partly led by Bernold M. “Bruno” Hanson, a big, blustery geologist, who later gained a reputation as an independent oilman outside Alaska.

That effort led to a farm-in from Shell on Humble acreage along the Bear Creek anticline and the drilling of a 14,375-foot exploration well in 1958 and 1959.

Bear Creek No. 1 penetrated numerous hydrocarbon intervals between the surface and 8,200 feet, but not enough to warrant commercial production.

Humble subsequently abandoned exploration on the Alaska Peninsula, refocusing its efforts in interior and northern Alaska, per U.S. Geological Survey records.