88 Energy reports death of Paul Basinski

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

88 Energy said April 5 that Paul Basinski has died due to unexpected complications resulting from a heart transplant operation.

Basinski was founder and CEO of Burgundy Xploration LLC. He was, 88 Energy said, “the concept generator for the HRZ unconventional play that 88E and Burgundy continue to pursue at Project Icewine.”

Basinski began acquiring North Slope acreage in 2012 and in late 2014 88 Energy struck a deal with Burgundy to acquire a majority interest in Burgundy’s large acreage position.

In releases on its Icewine exploration well 88 Energy said internal analysis and modeling indicated Icewine is in a high liquids vapor phase sweet spot “analogous to those encountered in other Tier 1 shale plays e.g. the Eagle Ford” in Texas.

Basinski told Petroleum News after the state’s 2015 lease sale that he had been with Burlington Resources and then with ConocoPhillips after that company acquired Burlington in 2005. He said he’d been working on shale since the mid-1980s and saw there might be a resource in Texas. The issue was to find a sweet spot and get it out of the ground, he said, with the idea that if you could drill into the kitchen, the source of the oil, it could be possible to put together a play.

Basinski said the situation is similar in Alaska where there is the largest field complex in North America - Prudhoe Bay - and none of the source rocks have ever been effectively drilled and stimulated with a horizontal well.

He said Burgundy, in partnership with 88 Energy, is chasing a vapor phase, where “you get a little bit deeper and where the oil is no longer oil in the reservoir, it’s actually a gas. But when you get it to the surface it becomes rich in liquids.” He compared the Icewine target to Eagle Ford but said a play on Alaska’s North Slope would have to be “significantly better” because it has “to be able to support the costs associated with it.”

- KRISTEN NELSON