BlueCrest not drilling offshore

BlueCrest Operating Alaska has withdrawn an application for an incidental harassment authorization for offshore drilling this year in Cook Inlet, according to information posted on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife website. The company had applied for the authorization of minor disturbance to sea otters during offshore drilling at the Cosmopolitan field, off Anchor Point in the southern Kenai Peninsula. BlueCrest has been planning to use the Spartan 151 jack-up drilling rig to drill wells into shallow gas and oil pools above the main oil reservoir at Cosmopolitan. The company is developing the main oil resources in the field using extended reach drilling from onshore, but the shallow reservoirs require offshore drilling.

BlueCrest no longer anticipates conducting the offshore drilling this year, although the company continues to progress its oil development plans involving its onshore drilling site - the company has shipped a suitably large rig from Texas to start the directional drilling.

“Consistent with our legislative testimony, we will not be drilling offshore gas wells this year,” Benjy Johnson, BlueCrest president and CEO, told Petroleum News in a July 25 email. “We are continuing our onshore oil development as planned. We are currently assembling the land rig and expect to begin drilling the onshore wells within the next few weeks.”

The Cosmopolitan field is currently producing oil from a single production well which was originally drilled as an exploration well several years ago.

- ALAN BAILEY