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NorthStar wants to expand North Fork unit
Kay Cashman Petroleum News Publisher & Managing Editor
NorthStar Energy Group, operator of the North Fork gas field east of Anchor Point on Alaska’s southern Kenai Peninsula, has applied to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources to expand its North Fork unit from 640 acres to almost 27,000 acres, a BLM official told Petroleum News Aug. 28.
“The original unit, back in the 1960s was 57,000 acres and NorthStar is looking at the same play,” he said. The original field owners “drilled a well there (part of Northstar’s 640 acre North Fork unit) and discovered gas, but there was no market. Now there’s a market.”
NorthStar recently struck a deal with Enstar Natural Gas Co. to provide gas for a new pipeline that the two companies will build from the North Fork gas field to Homer, giving that part of the state its first natural gas service. (See article in Aug. 24 issue of Petroleum News.)
NorthStar needs to drill a second well to ensure gas supply, something BLM says the company plans to do next year.
The first North Fork unit, formed in the 1960s, was operated by Standard Oil of California, now ChevronTexaco.
ChevronTexaco is one of the leaseholders in Northstar’s proposed unit expansion, BLM said. Other leaseholders include ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil, Gas-Pro (acquired by Northstar in 2001), Alliance, Aurora Gas, Alliance and White.
The companies with the most acreage in the expansion area are Gas-Pro, ConocoPhillips and Marathon.
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