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Jim Weeks, Dale Lindsey form new independent, UltraStar
Petroleum News Alaska Staff
Jim Weeks, Dale Lindsey and John Winther have launched a new, Alaska-based independent oil and gas company, UltraStar LLC, Weeks told PNA July 22. The company was assigned its first oil and gas leases by the state of Alaska in mid-July.
UltraStar was awarded seven tracts that Weeks, its president and chief executive officer, won in the state’s October areawide lease sales.
Weeks total bid for four leases in the Beaufort Sea sale was $371,770. Two of the tracts are in Foggy Island Bay southeast of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.’s Liberty prospect and two are between Gwydyr Bay and Prudhoe Bay.
The other three leases were from the North Slope onshore sale and are located southwest of BP’s Badami unit. Weeks paid $42,624 for those tracts. They are contiguous to, and south and southeast of, three leases Winstar LLC obtained in a 1998 areawide sale.
Weeks, Lindsey and Winther are also principals in Alaska-based Winstar and Weeks is also its president and chief executive officer.
Looking for drillable prospects Winstar and UltraStar have acquired licenses for 3-D seismic data covering a large portion of their leases in the vicinity of Badami and Liberty, Weeks said.
“We plan to have this data processed and, if we can develop drillable prospects that are economic, which we think we can, then we will seek partners and funding to enable drilling evaluation of our leasehold in this area,” he said.
Wants road to Badami The companies will “continue pursuing the construction of a permanent gravel road to the Badami airstrip to enhance and reduce the cost of ongoing operations here,” Weeks said, referring to Winther’s interview in the April 7 edition of Petroleum News • Alaska.
The Petersburg fisherman who founded Winstar told PNA he wants to see the North Slope road system extended 25 miles beyond the edge of the causeway to the Endicott oil field 10 miles east of Prudhoe Bay.
Badami, the farthest east producing oil field on the North Slope, was developed as a single, onshore drill site with standalone processing facilities for handling 35,000 barrels per day. To the disappointment of its operator BP, it has been producing 1,500-2,000 barrels of oil a day.
BP has been farming out interests in several prospects in the vicinity of Badami.
Industry observers agree that as production declines at the big North Slope oil fields, the smaller oil companies, including independents, will move in.
But Winther and Weeks contend that relying on ice roads, barges and aircraft to access eastern North Slope prospects can be cost-prohibitive for smaller companies, which, unlike the majors, are satisfied with 1,500 barrel-a-day finds.
A road to Badami, Winther said, would probably have to be built by the state. He has an estimate that shows the cost of building the 25-mile road would be “$50-$60 million, which includes all the bridges. It would be a heavy duty road that could handle the heavy drilling rigs.”
Other principals in Winstar are Bart Eaton, Skip Reierson, Jerry Kennedy, Rick Winther, Dale Winther and Mark Hickey. Weeks can be reached at (907) 258-2969.
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