Aurora plans Endeavour well this winter

Aurora Gas LLC is still negotiating with a potential partner to drill for oil at the Endeavour prospect near Anchor Point in the southern Kenai Peninsula, Ed Jones, Aurora’s executive vice president of engineering operations, told Petroleum News Dec. 16. The company now hopes to drill at Endeavour in the late winter, Jones said.

“We have just filed a (drilling) permit application with the AOGCC,” he said.

The Endeavour prospect in the Hemlock and Tyonek formations at depths between 8,000 and 9,000 feet closely resembles the nearby, offshore Cosmopolitan prospect — Cosmopolitan is known to contain oil. Drilling at Endeavour will mark a departure from Aurora’s traditional strategy of developing low-risk, shallow gas deposits around the Cook Inlet. The company has also been considering deep drilling for oil in the Tertiary in the Aspen project on the west side of the Cook Inlet. But Jones sees that project as somewhere further down the road for Aurora.

Meantime the company is in the process of planning a busy program of drilling for gas next year.

“We’re working on some other prospects,” Jones said.

—Alan Bailey