Yukon Flats exploration
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DOG issues preliminary determination for state exploration licensing in region
ALAN BAILEY Petroleum News
The director of Alaska's Division of Oil and Gas has published a preliminary written determination regarding the availability of state land in the Yukon Flats region for state licensing of exploration for oil and gas. The determination covers a rectangular region of land extending across the central area of the Yukon Flats region.
(See map in the online issue PDF)
"The land within the Yukon Flats determination area has unknown oil and gas potential and there is limited access to existing oil and gas infrastructure in much of the region," the state wrote. "Although oil and gas+ exploration has occurred in the past, technological advancements may facilitate more effective and efficient exploration."
The state will make a final determination for the state licensing area after reviewing public comments received on the preliminary determination. Comments are required by 5 p.m. on April 6.
Much of the surface land within the flats is encompassed within the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. However, Alaska regional corporation Doyon Limited owns some blocks of subsurface land while Native village corporations own some of the surface land. Petroleum News understands that the state only owns the mineral estate primarily under navigable waterways in the area.
A large prospective basin A large geologic basin lies under the Yukon Flats, with deep sub-basins within the main basin. The sub-basins may hold significant oil and gas resources, especially given the relatively high subsurface temperatures. In 2004 the U.S. Geological Survey published a new assessment of the basin, suggesting that there might be anywhere in the range of zero to almost 600 million barrels of technically recoverable oil in the basin, with a mean of about 173 million barrels.
A number of years ago consultancy firm Petrotechnical Resources of Alaska conducted an assessment of the Yukon Flats basin. The assessment indicated the possibility of from 300 million barrels to almost 1 billion barrels of oil, and perhaps 15 trillion cubic feet of conventional natural gas, in the basin. It also indicated the possibility of an oil field on the scale of the North Slope Alpine field somewhere in the basin.
Limited exploration activity The basin has seen some limited oil and gas exploration activity, thus far with no significant oil or gas discoveries publicly announced.
Doyon has a particular interest in the oil and gas potential of the basin. Around 2010 the Native corporation, using surface sampling and geochemistry, detected traces of oil and natural gas liquids that would have been formed from a subsurface thermal process. These types of surface hydrocarbon traces were particularly notable above a sub-basin around the village of Birch Creek, where Doyon had done sampling and hydrocarbon analysis of deep mud in lakes.
In addition, a seismic survey conducted by Doyon in early 2010, coupled with a re-assessment of geologic and geophysical data, indicated the existence of a deep sub-basin within the Yukon Flats basin in the area of Stevens Village, only about 25 miles from the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and the Haul Road to the North Slope. In the winter of 2012 and 2013 SAExploration conducted a 3D seismic survey on behalf of Doyon in the Stevens Village region.
But subsequently Doyon shifted its exploration focus more to the Nenana basin, another Interior basin with oil and gas potential.
Hilcorp exp loration Recently Hilcorp Alaska has been conducting an exploration program in the Yukon Flats basin. In 2019 the company signed an agreement with Doyon for renewed exploration in 1.6 million acres of Doyon owned land in the basin. And in 2021 Hilcorp drilled 13 shallow stratigraphic test wells around the villages of Birch Creek and Fort Yukon, in the central part of the basin, to evaluate the potential for deeper exploration drilling.
Subsequently in October 2025 Hilcorp completed an exploration well adjacent the Lower Mouth Birch Creek, about 10 miles west of the village of Birch Creek. The spill response plan for the drilling project indicated that the drilling was conducted from surface land owned by Tihteet'aii, the Native corporation for the Birch Creek village, into subsurface land owned by Doyon.
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