Oil Patch Insider

Songa contracts with Inlet Drilling for jack-up crew; Escopeta has pre-app, unitization meetings for Cook Inlet Kitchen project

Greg Carter with Songa Offshore is headed to Alaska the week of March 19 to meet with Kenai, Alaska-based Inlet Drilling, which is supplying the crews for Songa’s Tellus jack-up rig that will be headed to Alaska this summer for Escopeta Oil to drill the Kitchen prospect in Cook Inlet.

Bob Warthen, a consulting geologist working with Escopeta, told Petroleum News March 16 that some Inlet crew members will be sent to Port Arthur, Texas, to get familiar with the jack-up drilling rig. The Tellus is currently being refurbished in Port Arthur on the Gulf of Mexico.

Warthen has worked the inlet since 1967, first for Union Oil where he was a regional geologist for 26 years, and then as a consultant.

On March 15, Warthen and Escopeta’s permitting contractor, Entrix, had a pre-application meeting for the Alaska Coastal Management Program. Several government agencies were represented in the meeting, including the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish & Wildlife, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, the state Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas, and the coastal district office of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, among others.

“We have met with all the agencies separately, but this was our first meeting with everyone in the same room,” Warthen said.

Escopeta, he said, has applied to join Cook Inlet Spill Prevention and Response Inc., better known as CISPRI, an inlet response contractor.

On March 16 Warthen was scheduled to meet with Division of Oil and Gas officials regarding unitization of Escopeta’s Kitchen prospect.

—Kay Cashman