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DNR issues preliminary finding for Nenana oil, gas exploration license Final finding expected for Andex Resources request in August; Doyon Ltd. supports proposal for license, says it also wants to do own gas exploration in basin Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
The Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas, has issued a preliminary finding of the director for a proposed Nenana basin oil and gas exploration license.
The process began last April, when the division received a request from Andex Resources L.L.C. for an exploration license covering approximately 499,840 acres in the Nenana basin. The division issued a notice of its intent to evaluate the request in May — and at the same time requested additional proposals. No additional proposals were received.
Comments close May 31 and the division expects to issue a final finding in August. Doyon supports proposal The division received comments on its intent to evaluate notice from Doyon Ltd., the Native regional corporation for Interior Alaska.
Doyon told the division it supports the exploration license proposal, that it owns subsurface rights within the study area and also wants to conduct its own exploration.
Doyon told the division that its geologic evaluation of the area indicates a “high prospective for natural gas,” that production of gas would benefit residents — and that any production of gas from Doyon lands would benefit the corporation’s shareholders. Informational meetings Doyon Ltd. also recommended to the state that informational meetings be held in Nenana, Minto and Fairbanks to help the public understand the process and to provide the division with information. Doyon had suggested meetings before the preliminary finding. The division said it has found meetings are more productive after the preliminary finding has been issued and the public has had a chance to review the proposal.
The division has scheduled public meetings to discuss the license proposal, answer questions and take public comments: April 22 in Nenana, 7 p.m. at George Hall; April 23 in Minto, 1:30 p.m. at Lake View Lodge; and April 23 in Fairbanks, 7 p.m. at the Noel Wien Library auditorium. Time-equivalent to Kenai Group The division said the Nenana basin is a northeast trending elongate alluvial basin of some 8,500 square miles and said “the prospective sedimentary section, thought to be time-equivalent to the productive Kenai Group in the Cook Inlet, consists of sands, gravels, conglomerates, shales and coals.”
Two relatively shallow exploration wells have been drilled in the basin. The Unocal Nenana No. 1 was drilled to a total depth of 3,062 feet and plugged and abandoned in 1962. The ARCO Totek Hills No. 1 was drilled to a TD of 3,590 feet and plugged and abandoned in 1984.
“Except for minor amounts of gas associated with coal beds,” the division said, “no hydrocarbon shows were observed in the wells. Reports of oil seeps in the basin are unconfirmed.”
The Nenana basin is thought to be gas-prone, the division said, and “the significant volume of coal present in the basin suggests that natural gas is more likely to be encountered in commercial quantity than is oil.”
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