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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
April 2011

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

ExxonMobil in Alaska: Drilling and more drilling in Alaska

After the 1968 discovery of Prudhoe Bay, the predecessors of ARCO Alaska (ConocoPhillips today), BP and ExxonMobil began development drilling in the field.

Of the 23 wells that had been completed by the end of the summer of 1969, nine had been drilled by BP, seven by ARCO-Humble, four by Mobil-Phillips, two by Standard Oil of California (Chevron) and one by Hamilton Brothers.

Along with drilling came the construction of field facilities, in-field pipelines and gravel roads, and the like. First oil flowed down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in 1977.

But the predecessors of today’s ExxonMobil, Exxon and Mobil, were also exploring for other Alaska oil fields — on the North Slope and elsewhere, including the federal waters of the Gulf of Alaska and Lower Cook Inlet.

Pictured on these three pages is the Alaskan Star semi-submersible drilling rig that Exxon used for its drilling program in the western Gulf of Alaska in 1977 and 1978, where it drilled four wells, all dry holes.

Exxon and Mobil partnered with ARCO and others to drill two Continental Offshore Stratigraphic Test wells, generally referred to as C.O.S.T. wells, during the same period in the northeastern Gulf of Alaska.

None of the wells were successful, their individual costs ranging from $15 million to $23 million.

Exxon conducted two surveys in 1975, one in Lower Cook Inlet and one in the western Gulf.

In addition to a temporary office in Seward, Exxon’s Anchorage office had 14 full-time people working just on its Gulf of Alaska/Lower Cook Inlet operations.

The photos are courtesy of ExxonMobil; the captions were the originals written by Exxon at the time.






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