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Storm Cat expects to drill early 2006
Storm Cat Energy Corp. has announced that it now expects to drill its first well in Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough, north of Anchorage, early in 2006. According to company President Scott Zimmerman construction of a well site should start in mid-December, with drilling starting in January, depending on progress with permitting. The company has not announced a well site location.
In June Zimmerman told Petroleum News that the company hoped to drill in late third quarter or early fourth quarter 2005. The company is exploring for conventional natural gas but also expects to assess the potential for coalbed methane. Leases not far from Big Lake Storm Cat picked up two leases in the November 2004 Mental Health Trust Land Office lease sale and eight leases in the May 2005 Cook Inlet state areawide lease sale. All of the leases lie in the same general area of the Mat-Su Borough, not far from Big Lake. The company is using existing seismic data to assess its leases and earlier this year engaged an Alaska consulting firm to do a geologic evaluation, with the intent of selecting a drilling location.
Storm Cat is registered in British Columbia and has offices in Denver, Calgary and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Zimmerman was vice president of operations and engineering for Evergreen Resources, a Rockies-based coalbed methane producer that had been working a coalbed methane prospect in the Mat-Su Borough north of Anchorage before being bought out by Pioneer Natural Resources. Pioneer has since dropped its Mat-Su acreage.
—Alan Bailey
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