Pioneer still pausing on Alaska exploration

Pioneer Natural Resources has no immediate plans to resume its Alaska oil and gas exploration program, Timothy Dove, Pioneer’s president and chief operating officer said on Sept. 27 during a media tour of the company’s new Beaufort Sea Oooguruk field. Pioneer has seen little success in its Alaska exploration to date and is instead focusing on development projects such as Cosmopolitan prospect on the Kenai Peninsula and the Oooguruk oil field in the Beaufort Sea, he said.

“Based on the lack of success … we’re definitely slowing down our investments, until we make the next decision on where to go in terms of exploration,” Dove said.

In 2005 Pioneer brought the new Doyon-Akita truckable Arctic Fox 1 drilling rig to the North Slope, with the intention of using this portable rig to drill multiple exploration wells in each winter exploration season. During the 2005-06 season the company drilled three wells with the new rig: the Cronus No. 1 well and, jointly with ConocoPhillips, the Hailstorm No. 1 and Antigua No. 1 wells. But all three wells proved unsuccessful.

Pioneer did not drill any Alaska exploration wells in the winter of 2006-07.

Dove said that Pioneer is projecting an annual oil production growth of 12 percent between 2007 and 2011 from its operations, as fields such as Oooguruk come on stream.

—Alan Bailey