Hilcorp approved as North Fork operator
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Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Hilcorp Alaska is taking over at North Fork and has now been approved as operator of the unit, succeeding Vision Resources which has resigned as operator.
In a May 15 letter, Derek Nottingham, director of the Division of Oil and Gas in the Department of Natural Resources, approved Hilcorp as unit operator effective May 1. The division approved the lease assignment from Vision Resources to Hilcorp Alaska April 30, retroactive to Feb. 1. Hilcorp is the sole working-interest owner in the North Fork leases.
The sale was conditional on a change in how the pipeline serving the unit was regulated. The pipeline had a right-of-way lease from the state and was regulated as a common carrier by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, although the line had only ever served to carry gas from the North Fork field. The state converted the right-of-way lease to a private non-excusive easement, enabling RCA to revoke the certificate of public convenience and necessity for the pipeline. In its decision RCA said the line was constructed as a gathering line, "needed solely to perform a contract for the sale of gas" and only qualified for a CPCN because of the right-of-way lease.
Gas was discovered at North Fork, on the southern Kenai Peninsula, in 1965 by the Standard Oil Company of California and the unit was formed in that year but consistent production did not begin until 2011 after Armstrong Cook Inlet purchased the field in 2007, reentered the existing NFU No. 41-35 and drilled three new wells. The company also acquired 3D seismic over the field and built a 12-mile pipeline to the Enstar line extension at Anchor Point.
Most recently the field was owned by Gardes Holdings, which acquired it in 2020. Vision was the operating company.
In March, the most recent month for which Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission production data are available, North Fork averaged 1,671 thousand cubic feet per month, 0.84% of inlet gas production in that month, down 14.11% from a March 2024 average of 1,946 mcf per month.
The application to RCA to end the CPCN said Hilcorp wanted to explore at North Fork by year end.
--KRISTEN NELSON
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