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Eni Petroleum gives up Rock Flour unit Italian major voluntarily terminates central North Slope unit; Escopeta, BRPC, Armstrong, FEX and others get and give up leases Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
Eni Petroleum voluntarily terminated the Rock Flour unit in June.
According to recently released state lease reports, the Italian major relinquished the central North Slope unit, tucked between the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River units.
Eni acquired the lease when it arrived in Alaska in 2005, buying assets from Armstrong Alaska. Eni ultimately drilled two wells, Rock Flour No. 2 and No. 3, targeting viscous crude oil from several reservoirs. Previous exploration work in the area, including ARCO’s Rock Flour No. 1, showed oil-bearing sands. Eni planned to test whether higher underground temperatures in the area would make the sluggish oil easier to produce.
The decision to terminate the unit suggests Eni is no longer interested in completing its work commitments at Rock Flour. In a plan of exploration approved in late 2005, Eni agreed to drill three wells and run a seismic program at Rock Flour by this summer.
When Eni came to Alaska it divided its time among several prospects, but recently the company has focused mostly on bringing the near-shore Nikaitchuq unit into operation.
Escopeta drops N. Alexander According to the lease report, Escopeta voluntarily terminated the North Alexander unit in the Upper Susitna area on the west side of the Cook Inlet, north of Beluga.
The Houston-based independent acquired the onshore prospect about 10 years ago. The company planned to explore North Alexander on numerous occasions, even starting the permitting process for a well, but never successfully lined up a drilling program.
Escopeta previously estimated that North Alexander held some 400 billion cubic feet of gas in the Beluga and Tyonek formations and the shallower Sterling sandstones.
Escopeta is currently waiting to hear whether the state will give it six more months to drill an exploration well at Kitchen Lights, a huge offshore unit in the Cook Inlet basin.
Armstrong enters White Hills Also in June, 70 & 148 LLC picked up two land positions on the North Slope: a block of leases south of the Kuparuk River unit and another block in the White Hills prospect.
The North Slope subsidiary of Denver-based independent Armstrong Oil and Gas officially got leases for the 68 tracts it acquired in an October 2009 state lease sale.
Following that sale, Division of Oil and Gas Director Kevin Banks noted that the acreage extended into the tighter, gas prone southern reaches of the North Slope, but added that “good quality oil” could move through the rocks. He compared the region to the Meltwater and Tarn plays at the southern and western edges of the Kuparuk River unit.
70 & 148 also picked up four leases in the White Hills prospect from Chevron affiliate Union Oil Company of California and French major Total E&P USA.
The White Hills prospect is in the central North Slope south of the Kuparuk River unit, some 30 miles west of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. The leases include the Muskoxen 36-7-8 well Unocal drilled in early 2009, as well as the Wolfbutton 32-7-8 well Texaco drilled in 1988-89 and the Narvaq No. 1 well BP Exploration drilled in 1990-91.
Unocal has not released the results of the Muskoxen well, but the Texaco and BP wells did not yield significant discoveries. Unocal recently relinquished 41 of its White Hills-area leases, presumably in a move to refine the portfolio rather than abandon it. The prospect is thought to contain relatively shallow deposits of both oil and gas.
BRPC refines Tofkat area The joint venture led by Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. surrendered three leases southwest of its Tofkat prospect near the Colville River, south of the village of Nuiqsut.
The leases expired on May 31, 2010. The four-company joint venture — Alaska Venture Capital Group, TG World Energy, Ramshorn Investments and Bow Valley Energy — held two of the leases, while Alfred James, a geologist with ties to the joint venture, held the third. The group kept a fourth lease nearby not set to expire until Aug. 31, 2012.
The joint venture found oil at Tofkat in early 2008 and plans to return to the general area early next year to explore the nearby North Tarn prospect, contiguous to the southwest corner of the Kuparuk River unit. North Tarn is a farm-in from Eni Petroleum, and the state recently approved the transfer of leases to the joint venture from the Italian major.
In June, Alaska Venture Capital Group also got assigned four leases just east of Nuiqsut, also near Tofkat. The company acquired the leases at an October 2009 state lease sale.
Savant Alaska got assigned three leases south of the Point Thomson unit. The Denver independent picked up the leases at the same October 2009 sale. The leases include the BP Yukon Gold No. 1 well, which is on the state’s extended confidentiality list.
Aurora and Renaissance Also in the lease report, the state approved the expansion of Nicolai Creek, a unit on the west side of Cook Inlet operated by Aurora Gas, to include two un-unitized leases.
The state also approved the transfer of interest in several Cook Inlet leases from Dan Donkel and Samuel Cade to Renaissance Alaska, and from Renaissance to Stellar Oil.
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