Furie assets: $18 million cleaner

Steve Sutherlin

for Petroleum News

A stipulation between Furie Operating Alaska LLC and Shelf Drilling Offshore Resources Limited II, to reclassify an $18,828,456.03 claim against Furie and its related Chapter 11 debtors, represents a solid step toward clearing up liens for Furie’s proposed asset sale to Hex LLC.

The order, which approved reclassifying Shelf’s secured claims as general unsecured claims, was signed April 15 by Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein and filed in the U.S Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

The stipulation said Shelf has determined that it will not contest that it does not have any security interests or other secured claims or liens against any of the debtors or the debtors’ estates.

Shelf filed proofs of claims on Dec. 4 against the debtors, and Furie responded with an adversary complaint Feb. 14 declaring that Shelf’s alleged liens against the debtor’s estates were not valid.

Selber Silverstein will hear the details of the proposed asset sale to Anchorage-based Hex in a May 8 omnibus hearing in Delaware.

Furie contracted with Shelf for use of the Randolph Yost jack-up drilling rig, which sailed from Singapore on the purpose-built semi-submersible heavy-lift vessel Tai An Kou, reaching Alaska March 2016 in Kachemak Bay.

Furie said the Randolph Yost rig - bigger and more powerful than the Spartan - could more easily be cantilevered over Furie’s Julius R natural gas production platform for development drilling. The larger rig allowed the company to eliminate costly supply runs by accommodating more materials on site.

Furie had planned to use the rig to target potential oil accumulations below the Tertiary strata in Cook Inlet.

The Randolph Yost is currently stored at the Offshore Systems OSK Dock in Nikiski.

In addition to the Julius R platform, the Furie assets include the offshore Cook Inlet Kitchen Lights unit, an onshore processing facility, and related pipelines.

- STEVE SUTHERLIN