Explorers 2022: Explorers at 20

Looking back at the first issue of the Explorers

Eric Lidji

for Petroleum News

This is the 20th edition of the Explorers.

The magazine started in 2002 as “The Independents” and expanded in 2004 into “The Explorers.” We didn’t publish in 2013, making this the 20th edition of the publication.

“The Independents” was a response to the Charter for Development of the Alaska North Slope. A wave of major mergers and acquisitions in the oil industry at the turn of the 21st century greatly impacted Alaska. To address concerns about consolidation on the North Slope, the State of Alaska signed a deal on Dec. 2, 1999, with ARCO Alaska and BP Exploration Alaska, creating a framework to open the basin to “independent” oil companies. Phillips Petroleum Co. later signed the deal when it acquired ARCO Alaska and then carried that commitment through its subsequent merger with Conoco Inc.

Among its terms, the Charter required the majors to provide facility and pipeline access at “reasonable” terms and to make certain seismic and well data available to third parties.

In those years, “independents” were generally small, privately held upstream companies looking to drill exploration wells in overlooked areas and hopefully bring fields into production. That first issue of “The Independents” profiled Winstar Petroleum LLC, led by legendary oilman Jim Weeks. Thanks to the terms of the Charter, Weeks expected Winstar Petroleum to become the first independent oil producer on the North Slope.

In looking through that inaugural issue, some notable facts emerge.

For one, only a few of those original independents still operate in Alaska.

Do you remember Andex Resources? Cassandra Energy? Evergreen Resources? Forest Oil? Northstar Energy Group? Pelican Hill Oil & Gas? UltraStar Exploration?

Even the bigger, international upstream “independents” like Anadarko Petroleum, EnCana Oil & Gas, Unocal and XTO Energy are all no longer operating in Alaska.

But some of those early independents hung on.

The 2002 issue includes a breaking news piece about a recent acquisition by Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska LLC, the Alaska subsidiary of a Texas-based independent. Over the next five years, Pioneer brought the Oooguruk unit into production, beating Weeks.

The issue also profiles Armstrong Oil & Gas Corp. and the Alaska Venture Capital Group. For more than 20 years, those two companies have been important voices for independent companies trying to find a way to explore and operate on the North Slope.

Independents have remained a foundational part of the exploration landscape, but the majors are still major in a basin that favors big companies with deep pockets. “The Independents” became “The Explorers,” in part, to include ConocoPhillips, which has been the most dominant and consistent force in Alaska exploration over the past 20 years.

Some other changes since that first issue: improvements to horizontal drilling technology, the rise of the Nanushuk formation as a major play, expanded eastern North Slope infrastructure, the opening of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and the acquisition of BP Exploration Alaska’s North Slope assets by the privately held Hilcorp Alaska LLC.

Another notable fact: the balance of projects listed in that original issue of the publication leans toward Cook Inlet. Today, exploration activity heavily favors the North Slope.

And while independents have been a crucial factor in that shift, the North Slope remains a difficult place for independents to operate. One of the unspoken themes in this issue of the Explorers is the ongoing challenge facing independents: getting facility access, getting financing and riding the inevitable wave of obstacles and delays on the North Slope.

In the past 20 years, only two independents - and only one of them a “small independent” - have brought North Slope fields from exploration to production: Pioneer Natural Resources and Brooks Range Petroleum Corp. Eni now operates the Oooguruk unit, and ConocoPhillips operates some of Brooks Range Petroleum Corp.’s acreage.

But despite the challenges, independent companies keep coming to the North Slope each winter, bringing with them employment opportunities, novel ideas, and new enthusiasm.

This issue includes profiles of six exploration companies: 88 Energy, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Great Bear Pantheon Hilcorp, and Jade Energy. Those companies are targeting plays with long histories, and so the issue also includes six articles looking at the backstories of various regions and trends: the “billion-dollar fairway” at the western end of the central North Slope, the “string of pearls” in the eastern North Slope, the rise of the Nanushuk formation, efforts to explore the Arctic outer continental shelf, exploration dreams in the foothills of the Brooks Range Mountains and similar hopes for Interior Alaska.