Alaska's source for oil and gas news
Alaska's source for oil and gas news
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The Supreme Court of Canada has sent a tsunami wave through oil and natural gas, mining and forestry industries in a ruling that gives First Nations effective control over vast tracts of territory beyond the confines of their defined traditional lands. The 80-page decision applies specifically to drawn-out litigation affecting about 660 square miles in British Columbia’s central interior occupied by six communities within the Tsilhqot’in Nation, but has the potential to reshape resource development across Canada. The unanimous judgment rep...
Recent 3-D seismic surveys in the Kuparuk River field on Alaska’s North Slope are enabling the identification of new drilling leads in the field, according to field operator ConocoPhillips’ latest Kuparuk plan of development that the company has submitted to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. A survey conducted in 2005 has enabled the discovery of a number of drilling opportunities, including sidetrack wells using coiled tubing drilling, sidetracks using conventional rotary drilling, and the drilling of new wells, the plan says. The...
Furie Operating Alaska has obtained a permit to drill a fifth well in the Kitchen Lights unit, in the northern part of the Cook Inlet. In the latter part of the 2013 drilling season the company used its Spartan 151 jack-up drilling rig to start the drilling of the Kitchen Lights unit no. 4 well. Furie’s President Damon Kade has told Petroleum News that his company’s plans for the drilling of both the no. 4 and the no. 5 wells are confidential. However, both wells are clearly exploration wells and, given the timing of the permit application for...
Buccaneer Energy Ltd. has proposed a reorganization plan. The bankrupt Australian independent and its eight subsidiaries have put forth a plan in the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas for paying creditors. For the plan to go ahead, it must first satisfy a long list of requirements set by the court, and it must also pass muster with certain classes of creditors, as determined by a vote. Implementation of the plan would follow a proposed auction of the oil and gas assets held by Buccaneer and its eight subsidiaries. The...
On the tundra, and in offices, progress continues toward an elusive goal - first production from Point Thomson. The latest indication is a preliminary decision by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to approve an “air quality control construction permit” for ExxonMobil Corp., operator of the remote Point Thomson field. It takes a lot to bring a new oil and gas field into production, and ExxonMobil now appears to be entering the home stretch in its effort to add Point Thomson to the ranks of producing units on Alaska’s proli...
Alaska North Slope crude oil production averaged 500,525 barrels per day in June, down 7.48 percent from a May average of 541,001 bpd, driven by the first scheduled summer maintenance shutdown of the trans-Alaska pipeline oil pipeline. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., operator of the trans-Alaska pipeline, had the line shut down for 24 hours of major maintenance June 20-21. Shorter shutdowns are scheduled over the summer and one additional long-duration shutdown Aug. 29-30. North Slope producers take advantage of the Alyeska shutdown and summer...
Former Gov. Tony Knowles says he believes it’s time to leave the new gas tax alone. Knowles, an Anchorage Democrat, left office in 2002, after a two-term stint as the state’s seventh governor, and has remained actively interested oil and natural gas issues driving Alaska’s economy. While voters hit the polls in August to decide whether to repeal Gov. Sean Parnell’s tax plan, Senate Bill 21, Knowles has backed those fighting the repeal. He faces pushback from those pushing the repeal who alleged a cozy relationship and being a paid shill b...
No matter how much the Alberta oil sands get pilloried in the public arena and buried under a landslide of negatives the sector shows no signs of wilting. The operating environment in the northern Alberta resource has seldom, if ever, been so unfriendly, with capital costs on the rise again, takeaway capacity in short supply, aboriginal communities and environmental organizations blocking projects on multiple fronts, regulatory processes increasingly erratic and foreign investors forced into retreat by Canadian government rules. There is also...
Agriculture and forestry are responsible for a larger human footprint than the energy industry across Alberta’s three recognized oil sands units, putting a dent in the claims of those who blame the resource for laying waste to the province’s northern region. The findings emerge in a study by the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, an independent, not-for-profit scientific organization which reports on the status and trends of the province’s species, habitat and human footprint to help shape natural resource and land-use decis...
Cook Inlet Energy LLC has won approval from Alaska regulators to commingle production from multiple zones in the company’s Sword No. 1 well. The company first brought Sword online in November 2013. The exploratory well was drilled on land from a site near the company’s West McArthur River oil field on the inlet’s west side. The well angles out to a bottomhole location beneath the inlet. On May 1, Cook Inlet Energy asked the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to allow downhole commingling of production from three oil zones: the Hemlo...
State regulators are considering a request to transfer a controlling interest in two pipelines associated with the Badami unit as part of an acquisition at the eastern North Slope field. Savant Alaska LLC is looking to transfer its 67.5 percent interest in Nutaaq Pipeline LLC to Miller Energy Resources Inc., which is acquiring the small North Slope independent. The ASRC Exploration LLC subsidiary Badami Pipeline Holding Company LLC holds the remaining 32.5 percent interest. ASRC Exploration is a subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corp., which...
A federal board investigation into the 2010 BP oil spill concludes that a last-ditch safety device on the underwater well had multiple failures, wasn’t tested properly and still poses a risk for many rigs drilling today. The report issued June 5 by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (available on the board’s website at www.csb.gov/) zeroes in on what went wrong with the blowout preventer and blames bad management and operations. They found faulty wiring in two places, a dead battery and a bent pipe in the hulking device. And that, they said, led...
The Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Council is seeking recertification for another year. The council, based in Kenai, is a congressionally mandated organization that monitors oil industry activity including tanker traffic in Cook Inlet. Council members represent a broad range of interests: local governments, tourism and recreation, commercial fishing and aquaculture, environmental groups, and Alaska Native organizations. The council’s work includes providing advice and recommendations on terminal and tanker operations, and reviewing t...
A clearly observable large anticline in sedimentary strata, coupled with the existence of several surface oil seeps, will excite any worthwhile oil explorer. And, with both of those oil-suggesting features known about for many years, the Iniskin Peninsula on the west side of Alaska’s Cook Inlet, almost opposite the town of Homer, has long intrigued those interested in finding new sources of oil and gas. New proposals for state exploration licenses encompassing the peninsula indicate renewed interest in the area. The state’s Division of Oil and...
Maritime Helicopters Inc., an Alaska-owned business headquartered in Homer, has recently expanded its operations, adding seven new aircraft, including Bell 407s, Bell 206L4s and Eurocopter BO-105 twin engine helicopters. In support of this expansion, Maritime has recruited 15 new pilots and 15 new mechanics along with additional office staff statewide. Celebrating 41 years in the Alaska aviation industry, Maritime Helicopters was founded in 1973 with a single Bell 47 helicopter. The company has since grown to its current 16 aircraft, an...
Nabors Industries Ltd. announced that the company has signed a definitive agreement to combine its completion and production services businesses in the U.S. and Canada with C&J Energy Services Inc., an independent oilfield services and manufacturing company. Following the completion of this transaction, Nabors will own approximately 53 percent of the combined company, which will be incorporated in Bermuda and listed on the NYSE as C&J Energy Services Ltd. In addition to the 62.54 million shares of the combined company, Nabors will also receive...
URS Corp. said that Tim Anderson recently joined its team as a local development specialist. Anderson has more than a decade of service within the Chugach Region focusing on developing projects to help the communities and their members. He has human resources, computer, financial and budgetary, research, curriculum development and management experience. Anderson’s functions include project controls and procurement activities, stakeholder engagement support and local content development. He also provides oversight and mentorship of three i...
Oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. says the number of rigs drilling for oil and natural gas in the U.S. rose by 15 the week ending June 27 to 1,873. The Houston firm said in its weekly report that 1,558 rigs were drilling for oil and 314 for gas. One was listed as miscellaneous. A year ago there were 1,748 active rigs. Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Oklahoma gained eight rigs, Pennsylvania gained two and Alaska, California, Colorado, North Dakota and Ohio each gained one. Kansas lost three rigs while Louisiana lost two....
State regulations to curb flaring just got some teeth. The North Dakota Industrial Commission, NDIC, voted unanimously on new production restriction rules to reduce flared gas and meet a goal to capture at least 90 percent of the gas by 2020. Lynn Helms, director of the state’s Department of Mineral Resources, DMR, presented the commission with the proposed order at its monthly meeting on July 1. It imposes oil production restrictions if producers fail to meet the gas capture goals determined by the North Dakota Petroleum Council, NDPC, f...
As North Dakota continues to curb flaring of natural gas amid projections that the volume of gas in the state to be captured will more than double by 2020 (see story this page), midstream companies in the state are working hard to make sure the infrastructure will be there to meet the increasing supply. During the North Dakota Governor’s Pipeline Summit on June 24, three of those gas midstreamers, Alliance Pipeline, Oneok Partners and WBI Energy, gave assessments of how they are working to help the state deal with the growing demand on gas g...
One of the unwavering arguments used by opponents to bolster their case against Keystone XL - the project’s contribution to carbon emissions - is being contested. A report by consulting firm IHS Inc. said an increase in United States emissions as a result of increasing oil sands imports is not a given. It found that the carbon intensity of crude oil consumed in the U.S. from 2005 to 2012 actually declined by 0.6 percent, regardless of a 75 percent rise in imports of oil sands and other Canadian heavy crudes to 2.1 million barrels per day f...
Large capacity pipelines are changing the oil transportation landscape in North Dakota. Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, ETP, announced that it has already ordered the steel to begin construction of an approximately 1,100-mile, 320,000 barrel per day crude oil pipeline to transport supplies from the Bakken/Three Forks production area to Patoka, Illinois, where it will then interconnect with ETP’s existing 30-inch diameter Trunkline Pipeline, which is being converted from natural gas service to crude transportation. The pipeline is p...
Calgary-based Legacy Oil + Gas is pushing ahead with building its portfolio of resource plays. In a stock-and-debt deal valued at about C$225 million, it has scooped up privately held Corinthian Exploration and fattened its portfolio of light oil assets in North Dakota and northern Alberta in the process. It said the transaction is expected to close in July, subject to various approvals. The purchase price includes 20.1 million Legacy shares with a total value of C$191 million, based on late-June trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and C$34...
l COMPANY UPDATE The hope of finding potential in additional oil plays has led Whiting Petroleum to try the unexpected. As the third largest oil producer in the Bakken, Whiting is a “company on the move,” said Senior Vice President Pete Hagist. Hagist presented a company update at an energy conference on June 25, saying the company has developed a greater focus on critical plays in the past two years. Production has increased to 100,000 barrels of oil per day across all plays, with a record 73,000 barrels coming from the Williston Basin. “We co...
The North Dakota Supreme Court handed down a 4-1 ruling June 24 in the Tank v. Citation Oil & Gas Corp. matter. The opinion gave some amount of direction to industry as to the definition of “held by production” in North Dakota. In 1982, George and Phyllis Tank executed a lease to Petro-Lewis Funds Inc. for property in McKenzie County in the south half and northwest quarter of Section 10, Township 151 North, Range 96 West. The lease had a three-year primary term, which was extended by a ratification, amending the lease to continue for an add...
