Explorers 2012: Earlier Kaldachabuna well made a splash

Apache Corp. plans to drill its first Cook Inlet exploration well, the Kaldachabuna No.2, in the fourth quarter of this year.

Long forgotten in the annals of Alaska oil history is the story of the original Kaldachabuna well, the Simpco Kaldachabuna No.1 — that well caused something of a stir in 1980 when word got out that the well had struck oil when being drilled in by Simasko Production Co.

“Large Alaska find by two firms halts trading in their stocks,” read the headlines in the Oil Daily on Sept. 11, 1980, after the two companies, presumably partners in Simasko, had let it be known that the well had made a hefty oil discovery.

“Trading in the companies’ stock was halted in London, Vancouver and on the over-the-counter market in the U.S. after sharp rises in the companies’ stock,” the Oil Daily said.

Investors in oil company stocks might have done better waiting until Simasko performed tests on the discovery, something that did not take place until November 1980. Those tests confirmed the presence of oil and gas, but also found copious quantities of water in a fairly impermeable reservoir rock. Simasko concluded that there was no “commercial accumulation of hydrocarbons,” and subsequently plugged and abandoned the well.

With the benefit of new high resolution 3-D seismic data, and with modern drilling and oil production techniques, Apache can perhaps vindicate those earlier explorers’ initial enthusiasm.

—Alan Bailey