Anschutz Exploration said to have filed for Copper River exploration license
Wes Nason of Ahtna Corp., speaking at the Coalbed Methane Conference March 3 in Anchorage, said the corporation would like to see more drilling in its region, where 11 holes have been drilled in the Copper River basin since the 1960s.
Ahtna Minerals, he said, may provide some funding for shallow gas exploration.
And, Nason said, Ahtna supports Anschutz in its application for a state exploration license in the area.
ARCO permits second NPR-A well
ARCO Alaska Inc. spokeswoman Dawn Patience told PNA in mid-March that the company was working at the Clover site in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, where it planned to drill as many as three wells and sidetracks this season.
ARCO received a drilling permit March 17 for the 1 Spark well in NPR-A some 10 miles west of the Clover prospect, which was just west of Nuiqsut.
The company is also drilling exploration wells south of Tarn at Meltwater North and has permitted two wells and a sidetrack. Another exploration well, the 2 Nanuk, was permitted March 17 south of Alpine, some one and a half miles southwest of the 1 Nanuk, which ARCO drilled to 7,630 feet in 1996.
All of the companies winter exploration work is confidential, but Patience noted that "ARCO Alaska has participated in the discovery of more than 1 billion barrels of new reserves across the North Slope in the last 5 years."
AOGCC reschedules Eider hearing
The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has rescheduled a hearing on pool rules and an area injection order for the Eider pool at Endicott field in the Duck Island unit.
BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., operator at Endicott, requested the hearing in January and it was originally scheduled for March 28. It has been rescheduled for April 6 at 9 a.m. The hearing is at the AOGCC's offices at 3001 Porcupine Dr., Anchorage.
MMS schedules Barrow meeting
The U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service is sponsoring the "Beaufort Information Update" meeting in Barrow, March 28-29, at the Inupiat Heritage Center in Browerville.
For more information see the MMS website: www.mms.gov/alaska/cproject/conf-meet/ium.htm
Contact Kathy Mitchel at MBC Applied Environmental Sciences for additional information: [email protected]
| 
