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Renaissance transferring inlet leases
Renaissance Alaska LLC is in the process of transferring its onshore and offshore Cook Inlet basin leases to a new company, Stellar Oil & Gas LLC, owned by Renaissance executives Mark Landt, James Watt, Alan Huckabay and Vijay Bangia, Landt, Renaissance vice president for land and administration, told Petroleum News Oct. 6. The transfer of leases to the new company will enable the owners of that company to raise capital specifically for Cook Inlet exploration, as distinct from exploration in northern Alaska, he said.
“We are seeking new funding for our exploration activities in the Cook Inlet,” Landt said.
In northern Alaska, Renaissance is hoping to develop the Umiat oil field on the eastern side of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Northern Lights acreage transferred During the summer Renaissance transferred its offshore Cook Inlet leases in the Northern Lights prospect to Escopeta Oil & Gas, as part of a deal that resulted in the formation of the Escopeta-owned Kitchen Lights unit. Northern Lights forms a down-dip extension of the undeveloped Sunfish oil discovery underneath the ConocoPhillips North Cook Inlet gas field. The Kitchen Lights unit encapsulates three distinct offshore oil and gas prospects: Northern Lights, Corsair and Kitchen.
The hope is that Escopeta will be able to attract the capital necessary to bring a jack-up rig to Cook Inlet, to drill in Kitchen Lights, Landt explained. Stellar Oil & Gas might then be able to use that same rig to drill in 10,008 acres of offshore leases that Renaissance retained after the conclusion of the Kitchen Lights deal. Those retained leases include prospects at Middle Ground Shoal and Northwest Cook Inlet, Landt said.
In addition to the offshore acreage, Renaissance is transferring 47,582 onshore acres covering the North Sterling and West Eagle prospects on the Kenai Peninsula to Stellar Oil & Gas.
Under the Kitchen Lights unit plan of exploration, Escopeta must have a jack-up rig en route to Cook Inlet by June 20, 2010, with a Kitchen or neighboring East Kitchen well spudded by the end of that year. Further wells are required in subsequent years.
—Alan Bailey
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