Oil Patch Insider

Chevron joins Alaska gasline support group?

To date a minor player on the North Slope, ChevronTexaco has reportedly joined Alaska gas pipeline supporters by hiring a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C. to help the gasline become a reality.

According to the Oct. 12 edition of The Hill, “The Newspaper for and about the U.S. Congress,” ChevronTexaco is “an oil company interested in building a natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to the markets in the lower 48.” The Hill said “according to Senate records” ChevronTexaco has “hired the Federalist Group to help get it done.”

The daily publication says one lobbyist helping on the account was Drew Maloney, a former aide to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Phone calls to both ChevronTexaco and Maloney at the Federalist Group by Petroleum News went unanswered.

F.Y.I. According to The Hill, other recent clients of the Federalist Group include Time Warner, American Council of Life Insurers, Walt Disney Co., Verizon and The Texas Energy Center, a consortium sponsored by energy companies and local government that hired the Federalist Group in June “to lobby for support for ultradeep and unconventional onshore drilling research and development.”

The Federalist Group’s web page (www.federalistgroup.com) says Drew Maloney joined the firm in 2002 “to serve as the chief lobbyist for House Republican leadership” and was recently named to The Hill’s list of top lobbyists in Washington.

—Kay Cashman

Sky is not the limit in oil sands, says Nexen’s Charlie Fischer

But for all the bounty in the oil sands and the torrent of cash flow from record oil prices, he says there is a finite limit on how fast the region can be developed.

Fischer says there is simply not a limitless quantity of skilled labor, engineering talent and infrastructure to develop the oil sands any faster than is currently the case.

He expects there will be a “very steady progression” of projects tapping into the 175-billion barrel resource, but the pace is unlikely to be accelerated “because of the physical limitations associated with actually designing and building” the plants.

There is little doubt about Nexen’s enthusiasm for the oil sands as it aims for a 2007 start-up of its C$3.4 billion joint venture with OPTI Canada in the Long Lake project.

Timing being everything, it has also been able to channel its crude oil cash flow into Long Lake and avoid taking on extra debt.

—Gary Park

And another one bites the dust at Canadian Superior Energy

With great enthusiasm four months ago, Canadian Superior’s maverick Chief Executive Officer Greg Noval trumpeted the capture of Harvey Klingensmith as his new chief operation officer.

Previously president of El Paso Oil and Gas Canada, Klingensmith arrived with three other senior El Paso managers. He brought 30 years’ experience in the industry, including the disposal of El Paso’s Western Canadian assets for US$345.6 million to British Gas and a key role in setting up a joint Canadian Superior-El Paso venture to explore offshore Nova Scotia.

That partnership crumbled after the drilling of one controversial well that was abandoned earlier this year when El Paso refused to help finance testing of the Mariner I-85 well after paying two-thirds of the estimated US$30 million drilling cost to earn a half-stake.

El Paso has since sold the rest of its Nova Scotia assets for an undisclosed amount.

And Klingensmith resigned without explanation from Canadian Superior in early October, despite being hailed when he arrived for his “proven track record of exploration and production success both domestically and internationally.”

It was not an unfamiliar sequence of events at Canadian Superior.

In the 1990s, Noval landed Texas financier J.P. Bryan, former president and chief executive officer of Gulf Canada Resources.

That union lasted only 10 weeks, with Bryan departing without shedding any light on the reasons.

—Gary Park

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