Group looking for oil and gas under west Anchorage

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

Two of the more intriguing lease purchases in the state of Alaska’s May Cook Inlet areawide lease sale consisted of a couple of tracts in the western part of the city of Anchorage. Bruce Webb, a member of the investment group that purchased one of the leases, talked to Petroleum News recently about the group’s intentions.

Anchorage lies on the northeast side of the prolific Cook Inlet basin and Webb said that Dan Donkel, a veteran Alaska lease holder and another member of the bidding group, has a map from Cook Inlet oil exploration data showing an anticlinal structure under Anchorage. The group hopes to drill a well to tap into that structure.

The only significant existing well in the area is the Romig Park No. 1, drilled to a depth of 11,566 feet in 1964 by Pan American Petroleum Corp. in full-fee private land in the Sand Lake area. That well was plugged and abandoned.

But Webb said that there is a belief that the Romig Park well did in fact find some oil and gas.

What is the likelihood of being able to drill another well in the Anchorage?

“I think there is going to be a way of drilling a well in an environmentally conscious manner,” Webb said.

Nicholas Stepovich, David Lappi and Samuel Cade are also members of the group that purchased the acreage.