THE EXPLORERS 2004: Total, EnCana unload NPR-A leases; Talisman gets Caribou

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

According to Mapmakers Alaska, Total E&P USA has dropped all but three of its 20 leases and EnCana has dropped all of its leases in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Total assigned eight leases to partner Talisman Energy and relinquished nine to the Bureau of Land Management. The leases Total assigned to Calgary-based Talisman’s U.S. subsidiary, Fortuna Energy, cover the Caribou prospect — both the east and west blocks — where Total and farm-in partner Fortuna drilled an exploration well in 2003-2004.

The three leases Total hung onto are in the Fox prospect just south of the USGS/Husky Inigok Test Well No 1 on a ConocoPhillips and Anadarko Petroleum lease, Total spokeswoman Jenna Wright said Oct. 26, 2004.

Bear prospect leases were relinquished to BLM.

“The leases we kept are strictly Total’s with no agreements or farm-ins at this time,” Wright said.

“We released this acreage in order to focus our resources and efforts elsewhere within our U.S. portfolio, but the three leases we retained will be further evaluated to determine their exploratory potential,” she said.

Talisman has said it will probably drill a well in NPR-A in the winter of 2005-2006.

When asked where the well would be drilled, David Mann, manager of investor relations and corporate communications for Talisman, said he didn’t know: “Obviously we already have seismic on the Total acreage. And obviously we have our own views on geology and prospectivity,” he said in regard to the 9,362 foot, Caribou 26-11 No. 1 exploration well Total drilled, plugged and abandoned.

EnCana said it relinquished its five NPR-A leases as part of a strategy change for its Alaska oil and gas properties: “We went through an evaluation of the NPR-A acreage and, as a result, prioritized it down,” Paul Myers, vice president USA region for EnCana, told Petroleum News Oct. 25, 2004.

The decision to drop the NPR-A leases was part of a “continued maturation process of our portfolio – deciding where we want to be and where we want to focus.” There is “one area” in Alaska that EnCana is “most interested in,” and the five leases aren’t in it, Myers said, declining to identify that area.

The five leases, ranked as “low potential” by the Bureau of Land Management, encompass 56,980 acres 55 miles southwest of Nuiqsut, and are adjacent to Total’s Fox prospect.