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Linc permitting Cook Inlet seismic
Linc Energy Alaska Inc. is permitting a seismic survey near its first Cook Inlet well.
The Angel 2-D and 3-D program will cover an area just north of Goose Bay and west of the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet, in the Point MacKenzie area north of Anchorage.
The survey, run by SAExploration Alaska, includes a 2.64-square mile 3-D portion and a 12.7-linear mile 2-D portion. Linc hopes to have its permits in hand this March in order to finish the program by the end of May. The program is expected to last 30 days.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is taking comments through March 5.
SAExploration plans to conduct the survey using “new nodal technology consisting of an autonomous recording system with sensors approximately the size of a one pound coffee can.” The company will access the area using trucks and snowmachines when possible, and helicopters for areas off the existing road network in the region.
The survey is expected to involve between 10 and 15 three-inch holes drilled each day to a depth of around 25 feet. The holes would each be loaded with 4.4 pounds of charge.
Near uneconomic well Linc Energy drilled the LEA No. 1 exploration well in the general area of the proposed seismic survey in late 2010. Although the well encountered several gas-bearing coal seams, Linc ultimately decided the structure was “too tight” to produce economically.
“The conclusion from the testing is that although gas is trapped within the coal, there is not sufficient natural fracturing in the coal to allow for the recovery of commercial quantities of gas,” the company wrote in a statement in May 2011. Despite the disappointing news, Linc said the LEA No. 1 encountered a “significant” coal seam that “appears to be highly suitable” for future underground coal gasification development.
Underground coal gasification, or UCG, is a process of creating a synthesis gas from methane-rich coal deposits too deep to mine, and is Linc’s primary objective in Alaska.
Linc is also pursuing UCG opportunities over 181,414 acres of Alaska Mental Health Trust leases on the west side of Cook Inlet, on the Kenai Peninsula and in the Interior.
The company also intends to explore the Umiat oil prospect on the North Slope.
—Eric Lidji
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