Buccaneer starts work at Kenai Loop

Buccaneer Alaska has begun building a drilling pad and an access road for its onshore Kenai Loop No. 1 well on the Kenai Peninsula, the company announced on March 9.

The local subsidiary of an Australian independent plans to target the natural gas potential of multiple stacked pay zone possibilities at depths between 5,000 and 10,000 feet.

The company said it is permitting three drilling locations and hopes to spud in April. The field is located just north of the city of Kenai on the east side of the Cook Inlet basin.

Buccaneer is forecasting resource potential around 52 billion cubic feet of natural gas from the field, with initial flow rates between 5 million and 10 million cubic feet per day.

Kenai Loop No. 1 would be Buccaneer’s first well in Alaska. The company is also looking to buy a jack-up rig to drill several offshore Cook Inlet wells.

To fund those projects, Buccaneer recently announced plans to undertake a “shareholders purchase plan” to bring in as much as $16.6 million by issuing nearly 175 million shares.

—Eric Lidji