Linc permitting well at Point MacKenzie

Linc Energy is permitting a natural gas exploration well near Point MacKenzie.

The Australian exploration company wants to drill the LEA No. 1 well on the north banks of the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. The vertical well would be on lease ADL 390588.

Linc is asking the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for an exemption to the rule requiring drilling and testing of a well to be at least 1,500 feet from a property line. Linc acquired the Point MacKenzie acreage earlier this year from San Francisco-based independent GeoPetro. Although GeoPetro didn’t drill in Alaska, the company built a drill pad and access road to a proposed Point MacKenzie well called Frontier Spirit No. 1 that would have targeted conventional gas in the middle and lower Tyonek Formations.

Linc previously said it hoped to drill by September.

The company is also interested in unconventional gas supplies in the Cook Inlet by extracting synthesis gas from deep coal deposits, or Underground Coal Gasification.

—Eric Lidji