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Tulsa group buys Gas-Pro Alaska, is permitting North Fork gas well Goal of Northstar Energy is to provide gas for Anchor River, Homer; one gas well shut in, working permitting for second well Kristen Nelson PNA News Editor
?$independent joined the Cook Inlet oil patch when Northstar Energy Group Inc. of Tulsa, Okla., purchased Gas-Pro Alaska LLC early this year.
“The entire interest of Gas-Pro has been purchased by Northstar Energy Group, and the management of Northstar Energy Group is also the management for Gas-Pro Alaska,” Larry Snead, manager of land and contracts for Northstar Energy, told PNA Nov. 7. Gas-Pro is still an Alaska company, he said, but the ownership and management has changed and the company is being operated out of Tulsa.
Northstar Energy is a group of oil industry professionals, all with more than 20 years experience, mostly in the Lower 48 and internationally, he said.
Snead said the group's geological staff has been focusing on Alaska opportunities for the last three years and that Northstar Energy was formed in early 2000 specifically to purchase Gas-Pro. He said the company also has some other Cook Inlet projects on the drawing board.
“The primary focus of the company is Gas-Pro's assets on the Kenai peninsula,” he said. The company has joined CISPRI, Cook Inlet Spill Prevention & Response Inc., Snead said.
North Fork 35th POD approved The Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas has approved Northstar Energy's 35th plan of development for the North Fork unit on the Kenai west of Anchor Point. There is a suspended gas well at the unit and Snead said Northstar Energy met with Enstar Natural Gas Co. in early May about providing gas to the lower peninsula. A second gas well will be required before gas could be marketed, and Northstar Energy has begun permitting for a second gas well in the unit, he said.
Snead said the company is working on required permits to drill at North Fork and plans to spud in the first quarter of 2001. He said total cost of the well will be $3.5 million to $4 million. The suspended well in the North Fork unit, the North Fork No. 41-35, was drilled in 1965 by Standard Oil Company of California.
The well reached a total depth of 12,812 feet. There were oil shows in the Hemlock and gas flows from the shallower Tyonek formation at 220 thousand cubic feet a day from perforations at 8,563-73; flows of 1,770 MCF a day from perforations at 8,563-8,579 and 8,592-8,502 feet; and a pay interval at 8,005-8,045 feet which flowed gas at a rate of 4,360 MCF a day.
Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission field information describes the North Fork gas field as having one suspended well with the reservoir in the Tyonek formation at a depth of approximately 7,200 feet below sea level and 40 feet of net pay.
Gas-Pro acquired Unocal's interest in North Fork in 1996 and Marathon Oil Co.'s interest in 1999.
Existing well will be completed Snead said Northstar Energy does not anticipate re-entering the existing 41-35 well for testing, but does plan to re-enter to complete the well. He said the company doesn't doubt that the 41-35 well is capable of producing gas.
He said Northstar Energy believes a market for gas will develop in the Anchor Point-Homer outlying area, and one of the requirements to provide gas for that market is to have an alternative source.
The original well was plugged back and completed in the gas producing zone, Snead said. In the new well that is being permitted, he said, the plan is to take that well to a depth sufficient to test the Hemlock.
When operations begin on the initial development location at North Fork, an Alaska office would be opened. The company said that its policy would be, whenever possible, to hire local personnel and utilize local vendors and service contractors for its operations.
Snead told PNA in early November that the company had not yet signed a contract for a drilling rig for the North Fork project.
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