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ACI gets stake in North Fork leases AVCG transfers interest to partners; Conoco gives Exxon stake in Kuparuk area leases; Stellar gets Southern Cross interest Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
Armstrong Cook Inlet continues to expand its lease holdings on both the North Slope and in the Cook Inlet basin of Alaska, according to recently released state lease reports.
Union Oil Company of California and Marathon Alaska Production transferred portions of three North Fork area leases to the local subsidiary of the Denver-based independent.
Unocal, an affiliate of Chevron, transferred a minority working and royalty interest in two leases around the North Fork unit, located 10 miles north of Homer. The first, ADL 2095, is a lease from the 1960s that sits about a mile northeast of the unit and the second, ADL 391211, is a lease from the 1950s just west of the North Fork production pad.
Marathon Alaska Production transferred a small working and royalty interest in ADL 733, a lease from the 1950s contiguous to the southern boundary of the North Fork unit.
Armstrong is close to bringing the North Fork unit, an undeveloped discovery from the mid-1960s, into production and could theoretically expand drilling if successful.
GMT royalty transfer On the North Slope, GMT Exploration Co. LLC transferred a 3.33 percent royalty interest in 10 nearshore Beaufort Sea leases to Bill Armstrong, CEO of Armstrong Oil and Gas. Armstrong brought Denver-based GMT to Alaska in 2010 and the companies jointly hold significant North Slope acreage, but have not yet announced any plans.
Also on the North Slope, the Alaska Venture Capital Group transferred minority working and royalty interest in 12 Beechey Point unit leases to Brooks Range Development Corp. and Ramshorn Investments Inc., two members of the joint venture developing the unit.
Farther west, ConocoPhillips transferred a 0.3648 percent working interest and a 0.304 percent royalty interest in six Kuparuk area leases to ExxonMobil. The leases fill the un-unitized fairway between Kuparuk River unit and its Meltwater satellite, and expire on Jan. 31, 2012.
Badami lease transactions In December 2010, the state also finalized a lease transaction at the Badami unit on the eastern North Slope. Unit operator BP transferred four Badami leases to Savant Alaska and ASRC Exploration, the independent and its partner that brought the eastern North Slope unit back online late last year. BP transferred a 67.5 percent working interest in the leases to Savant Alaska, the Denver-based company that led the development effort, and 32.5 percent to ASRC Exploration, the subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corp.
Savant Alaska in turn transferred a 22.5 working interest and an 18.75 percent royalty interest on two leases in the Badami area to ASRC Exploration. The first lease, ADL 391380, is adjacent to the northwest corner of the unit and expires on Aug. 31, 2014. The second lease, ADL 391431, is adjacent to the southeast corner of the unit and expires on May 31, 2014. Previously, in April 2010, Savant transferred a 10 percent working interest and an 8.33 royalty interest in those same two leases to ASRC Exploration.
Finally, Buccaneer Alaska transferred a very small royalty interest in three leases in the proposed Southern Cross unit to Stellar Oil and Gas. Buccaneer is the local subsidiary of an Australian independent. Buccaneer arrived in Alaska after buying lease holdings from Stellar Oil and Gas, an independent that shared executives with Buccaneer.
Southern Cross is a proposed offshore unit in the upper Cook Inlet.
—A copyrighted oil and gas lease map from Mapmakers Alaska was a research tool used in preparing this story.
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