Cassandra Energy buys Katalla field

Kay Cashman

Cassandra Energy Corp. of Kenai has agreed to purchase the 465-acre Katalla oil field under a lease-purchase contract with owners Del and Ginger Welch of Valdez, Cassandra President Bill Stevens told PNA April 18. The deal takes the Alaska independent a step closer to horizontally drilling an exploratory well into adjacent ground in the Chugach National Forest where the subsurface oil and gas rights are held by Chugach Alaska Corp., an Alaska Native regional corporation.

Cassandra has leased 10,134 acres adjacent to Katalla from Chugach Alaska. Katalla is 50 miles south of Cordova and the site of Alaska’s first commercial oil production.

Under a 1982 agreement with the federal government, Chugach Alaska has to locate commercial quantities of hydrocarbons on the acreage by Dec. 31, 2004, or the subsurface rights revert to the government.

Stevens, who is the safety and health program coordinator for Inlet Drilling Alaska Inc. in Kenai, plans to use Inlet Rig CC1. He hopes to start drilling in late fall.

Stevens is involved in the permitting process now with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, but said he has not yet started to work with state agencies.