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FEX drops last onshore state acreage Chevron drops more leases in the White Hills area and Anadarko drops more leases in the remote corners of the Brook Range foothills Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
l LAND & LEASING
FEX relinquished its last onshore state acreage in Alaska in late July, 11 leases covering 63,110 acres some 50 miles east of Umiat, according to recent state lease records.
The acreage is spread over two clusters.
The local subsidiary of the Canadian company Talisman Energy dropped seven leases picked up in an October 2006 lease sale for $410,054.40, the first onshore state acreage in the company’s portfolio. The leases include the Atlantic Richfield Susie 1 well.
Those leases would have expired on Aug. 31, 2014.
FEX picked up the remaining four leases in an October 2007 North Slope lease sale for $298,828.80. The leases include BP’s 1 Itkillik U. well and expire on July 31, 2015.
FEX appears to be pulling out of Alaska, or at least severely consolidating its holdings.
FEX announced in March 2010 that it wanted to sell more than 1 million net acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the Brooks Range foothills. In May, the company dropped considerable onshore state acreage in the central North Slope and in July relinquished more than 94,000 offshore state acres in the waters of Harrison Bay.
FEX still holds some 108,000 acres in the state waters of Smith Bay.
Chevron refining White Hills Chevron continued paring down its central North Slope holdings. Through its affiliate Union Oil Co. of California, the company relinquished 12,795 acres in early August.
The five leases are at the northern tip of the White Hills prospect, an oil and natural gas play that signaled Chevron’s return to North Slope exploration several years ago.
Chevron acquired the acreage in an October 2007 North Slope lease sale for $327,603.20. The leases were part of the former Whiskey Gulch unit operated by Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. The leases include ARCO’s 2 Winter Trail and 1 Ravik State wells.
The five leases would have expired on July 31, 2013. Chevron chose to stop rental payments.
Chevron drilled five exploration wells at White Hills in 2008 and 2009, but this year began relinquishing acreage at the prospect south of the Kuparuk River unit. After permitting additional well locations in the northern end of the prospect, Chevron relinquished the southern two-thirds of the play. Chevron now holds 12 leases in the area.
Chevron operates the White Hills exploration program and holds a 70 percent interest in the leases. A subsidiary of the French major Total holds the remaining 30 percent.
Anadarko refines foothills Anadarko relinquished four leases covering 19,796 acres in the foothills.
In July, Anadarko dropped 61 leases covering 296,375 acres in the foothills, north of the Gates of the Arctic National Park. The most recent relinquishment is farther southeast.
Anadarko picked up the leases in a May 2004 sale. The leases would have expired in May 2014.
Anadarko said in August that it relinquished acreage in the southern foothills because it couldn’t arrange a drilling program in the remote area before the leases expired.
In 2008 and 2009, Anadarko and its partners drilled four foothills exploration wells, the first wells in northern Alaska specifically targeting natural gas instead of oil. Those wells all sat farther north in the foothills, in an area Anadarko calls the Gubik Complex.
Leasing odds and ends In other leasing news, 70 & 148 LLC, the North Slope-focused subsidiary of Denver-based Armstrong Oil and Gas, transferred a small royalty interest, some 3.33 percent, in 19 Beaufort Sea leases and 75 North Slope leases to CEO Bill Armstrong.
70 & 148 also gave independent GMT Exploration Co. a 25 percent working interest in 41 leases in the central North Slope. GMT and Armstrong are partners in Cook Inlet.
Independent investor J. Andrew Bachner relinquished 16 leases covering some 35,980 acres in the state waters of the Beaufort Sea, north of Gwydyr Bay and Milne Point.
Bachner picked up the leases in an October 2007 sale. The leases had an expiration date of July 31, 2013.
Cook Inlet Energy, a subsidiary of Tennessee-based Miller Petroleum, transferred portions of four offshore Cook Inlet leases to fellow independent Buccaneer Alaska.
Stellar Oil and Gas, the sister company to Renaissance Alaska, finalized the transfer of 17 Cook Inlet leases to Buccaneer Alaska, a subsidiary of Australian Buccaneer Resources.
The executive team behind Stellar and Renaissance runs Buccaneer Alaska.
The transfer includes a small royalty share, less than 1 percent, given to a Houston-based independent called Woodstone Resources LLC that currently owns no leases in Alaska.
Finally, a group of independent investors led by Daniel K. Donkel and Samuel H. Cade completed their transfer of nearly 200,000 Cook Inlet acres to Apache Alaska.
A copyrighted oil and gas lease map from Mapmakers Alaska (www.mapmakersalaska.com/) was a research tool used in preparing this story.
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