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TotalFinaElf not new to Alaska Company plans to drill new leases; has recently shot 3-D seismic in NPR-A; currently has leases at Red Dog near Point Thomson, southeast of Kuparuk, Beaufort Sea; in past held interests in Cook Inlet, Sandpiper Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
TotalFinaElf E&P USA Inc., Houston-based subsidiary of Paris-based Total Fina Elf S.A., was apparent high bidder on 20 tracts in the Bureau of Land Management’s June 3 National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska lease sale.
The company is not a newcomer to Alaska: it holds state acreage, some 23,590 acres net, and a map provided by the company indicates that, prior to the NPR-A lease sale, the company had interests in two Minerals Management Service outer continental shelf leases in the Beaufort Sea, is in partnership with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. at the Resolution prospect south and east of the Kuparuk River unit and has interests in two tracts, the Red Dog prospect, at the ExxonMobil-operated Point Thomson unit.
Total had been a partner in the BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.-operated Badami unit on the eastern side of the North Slope, but in February it assigned its share of acreage in Badami along with a number of other North Slope lease interests to BP.
Last fall, TotalFinaElf had a net acreage position on state oil and gas leases of some 46,339 acres. In 1999, Petrofina Delaware was the ninth largest state acreage holder, with a net position of 68,051 acres. Companies have Alaska history Total, Petrofina and Elf Aquitaine, the component companies of TotalFinaElf, have all been present in Alaska in the past, TotalFinaElf’s Kathy Temple told PNA June 5. Temple, Houston-based communications manager for TotalFinaElf E&P USA Inc., said Petrofina already held acreage in Cook Inlet in 1965 and Elf Aquitaine had acreage in Alaska at least since the early 1980s.
By 1996, when PNA did a survey of company activity, Elf was on the list of companies which had left the state or were no longer actively investing. Sandpiper partner Petrofina Delaware Inc. remained active.
It was a partner with BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. and Murphy Exploration & Production Co. in the MMS Sandpiper unit northwest of Northstar. In December 1999, BP notified MMS it would no longer operate the Sandpiper unit and Murphy became the unit operator.
“The Sandpiper unit was terminated April 1, 2001, when Murphy gave notice it wouldn’t be able to meet its work commitments to maintain suspension of production for the unit,” Robin Cacy of the U.S. Minerals Management Service told PNA June 4. Two leases are still active, she said: one expires in 2003, the second in 2006.
Oil was found at Sandpiper in 1985 and 1986. Murphy told MMS in a plan of operation that “the most economically attractive conceptual plan for possible development of the field is to construct a gravel island on Loan Shoal with minimum process facilities.” Crude oil would then be piped to BP’s Northstar facility for processing. Murphy estimated that Sandpiper would have peak daily production rates of 8,000 barrels of oil and 50 million standard cubic feet of gas and a field life of 24 years.
Total recoverable liquid reserves were estimated in the 47 million barrel range. Stockton Island alignment agreement On the eastern side of the North Slope, in addition to its Badami interests, Petrofina joined ARCO Alaska Inc., and Murphy in 1998 in the Stockton Island alignment agreement, which included all or parts of 16 leases — more than 48,500 acres — near Mikkelsen Bay. Petrofina had a 30 percent interest in the leases.
More recently, TotalFinaElf has joined Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in the Resolution prospect, 17 state oil and gas leases southeast of the Kuparuk River unit.
Anadarko began permitting two wells in the area last year as a backup winter exploration project for its planned NPR-A well at Altamura.
Anadarko did drill Altamura, rather than Whiskey Gulch, but the company told PNA in August that the Whiskey Gulch oil prospect is due east of Meltwater and close to infrastructure. At that time the prospect was 100 percent owned by Anadarko, and that company described it as an old prospect which ARCO had drilled in and around. Company plans to drill soon And what plans does TotalFinaElf have in the NPR-A?
In a statement released after the sale, the company said only that the tracts on which it was apparent high bidder “cover an area of 920 square kilometers and are located onshore near several recent discoveries.
“Over the past years,” the company said, “TotalFinaElf has developed its knowledge of this oil area, notably from seismic work carried out to identify attractive prospects.”
Spokeswoman Temple told PNA that the company is not prepared to go into detail about its plans “beyond saying that we will continue work on the data and plan to drill as soon as possible.”
Temple did note that the BLM had been quoted as saying that data on the blocks on which Total bid was old 2-D seismic.
“In fact,” Temple said, “the blocks on which our most significant bids were made are covered by new 3-D data.”
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