The state of Alaska’s plan to drill a stratigraphic test well offshore the 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is “alive and well,” the governor’s senior adviser on energy, mining and the environment told Petroleum News Jan. 6. (See related stories on page 4 and page 14 of this issue.)
Mike Menge said Gov. Frank Murkowski had hoped to drill the well this winter but uncertainty around the presidential and U.S. Senate elections this past fall made oil companies wary about signing on to the project, which was designed to involve a consortium of companies with the actual drilling done by a division of ASRC Energy Services, a subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corp. ASRC is the Native regional corporation for Alaska’s North Slope and is headquartered in Barrow.
“In my opinion, if the election this past fall had gone another way — if Bush and (Sen. Lisa) Murkowski had not been elected — then I think there would have been a very small chance of ANWR being opened,” Menge said.
“We only had one major company willing to sign up (before the election) but they were concerned about the opening of ANWR … which looks a lot more likely now. … As we move closer to the opening I think we’ll see a lot more oil companies interested in joining” the drilling consortium, he said.
A well drilled offshore the eastern portion of ANWR’s coastal plain could provide valuable information about the geologic potential of both the coastal plain and offshore federal and state waters, Alaska Division of Oil and Gas Director Mark Myers told Petroleum News in a past interview.
“The governor wants to accelerate oil and gas exploration and development and this is just one part of that effort. This is an area that has been under-evaluated and this … well could provide the data, the catalyst for more frontier exploration,” he said.
