THE EXPLORERS 2006 - Welcome to The Explorers 2006

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

The 2006-07 winter drilling season north of the Brooks Range in Alaska promises to be the busiest in at least a decade.

Thirteen exploration wells are scheduled to be drilled — and possibly as many as 18 — by six companies, including ConocoPhillips in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and possibly northeast of Alpine; Talisman subsidiary FEX in NPR-A; Eni Petroleum at its Rock Flour and Maggiore prospects near Kuparuk; Anadarko Petroleum at its Jacob’s Ladder prospect on the eastern North Slope; AVCG/Brooks Range Petroleum near Gwydyr Bay; and Savant Alaska offshore in the Beaufort Sea near Liberty at its Kupcake prospect.

Three of the six companies have never drilled a well in Alaska before this year — Italian major Eni, Alaska-based independent Brooks Range and Savant Alaska, a subsidiary of a Denver-based independent.

Less certain, and not included in the above well count, is a well UltraStar Exploration hopes to have drilled by BP at the Dewline Deep prospect west of Point McIntyre. Company Managing Member Jim Weeks said Oct. 17 that BP told him UltraStar’s exploration well is “slotted in” to its drilling schedule, which suggests it will be drilled this coming winter (2006-07).

Also not included in the exploration well count is the BP-operated gas hydrate stratigraphic test well east of Milne Point.

All explorers appear to be targeting oil, except the hydrate test well, of course, but there’s always a good chance of hitting natural gas when you drill an oil well.

However, exploration is not what it should be — what the resources dictate it should be — in Southcentral Alaska’s Cook Inlet basin.

We have our fingers crossed that Escopeta Oil will be able to bring a jack-up in to drill its offshore Kitchen leases.

And that the ConocoPhillips-Marathon LNG facility will get its export license renewed. Without the industrial market for Cook Inlet gas there is no incentive for exploration.

And we’re hoping equally hard that Rutter and Wilbanks finds commercial quantities of natural gas at its Glenallen well. (Check the On Deadline section, which closes out much later than this section for the latest news.)

And right next to adventurous explorers such as Conoco and FEX drilling wildcats in NPR-A, and Anadarko drilling Jacob’s Ladder, there is BP (and Conoco) pushing the frontiers of technology with viscous oil development.

Alaska has a great group of companies.

And seven is a lucky number. Hopefully, that means Alaska will get a gas pipeline contract in 2007.

2007 will also very likely be the beginning of serious exploration offshore northern Alaska — outside the barrier islands in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas by, among others, Shell Oil, which has one of the most respected environmental records of any oil company in the world.