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Newfield revisits Alaska
Steve Sutherlin Petroleum News
Newfield Exploration people left Alaska recently for the second time this year after visiting with industry officials regarding Alaska’s oil and gas geology and operating environment.
Petroleum News reported a very hush hush visit by a Newfield team in early fall 2018 which included scientists making a multiday study of the North Slope’s geologic potential. None of them handed out business cards.
Since the 2018 Alaska visit, much has changed for Newfield, most notably the company’s acquisition by Ovintiv, formerly known as Encana.
While Newfield has no Alaska operating experience, Encana drilled the McCovey No. 1 exploration well in the Alaska Beaufort Sea in December 2002.
Encana plugged and abandoned the McCovey No. 1 in February 2003. The Calgary based independent, which first entered Alaska in 2000 as Alberta Energy, announced in December 2004 that it was pulling up stakes in Alaska and putting its Alaska holdings on the market.
Much too, has changed for Ovintiv since its Alaska days.
The most substantive transformation for the company began with the installation of Doug Suttles as president and CEO in mid-2013.
Suttles came to Ovintiv from BP, having held senior leadership positions including chief operating officer, BP Exploration and Production and president, BP Alaska. He was president of BP Sakhalin Inc., vice president for North Sea operations and president of BP’s Trinidadian oil business.
Prior to joining BP, Suttles completed various production engineering assignments with Exxon from 1983 to 1988.
Under Suttles, Encana underwent its name change to Ovintiv, and in 2019, it moved its headquarters from Calgary to Denver.
Encana’s Alaska days At one point in 2003, Encana had almost 800,000 net acres in Alaska acquired through lease sales and partnerships.
Encana’s partners at McCovey were ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips.
A plan to drill from an ice island raised concerns for Bowhead whales, so the project used the SDC - steel drilling caisson - built for the Arctic by Canadian Marine Ltd. in 1982 using an old tanker as a shell.
Encana bought leases in a northeast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska lease sale in 2002.
Encana was sole bidder in Alaska’s May 2003 North Slope Foothills areawide sale, bidding $36,576 for a 5,760-acre tract, adjacent to a large Anadarko Petroleum-Encana lease block south-southwest of Sagwon on the Dalton Highway.
Encana was second highest bidder at the September 2003 U.S. Minerals Management Service Beaufort Sea sale. It paid $3,550,158 and won all 24 tracts on which it bid, including a block of 19 tracts north of NPR-A in the Smith Bay area.
Encana spokesman Alan Boras told Petroleum News Sept. 25, 2003, that the 24 tracts the company took included about 100,000 acres on the western Beaufort and about 20,000 acres approximately 20 miles northeast of Prudhoe Bay.
Prior to this sale, Encana had 675,000 net acres in Alaska.
- STEVE SUTHERLIN
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