|
Anadarko buys ChevronTexaco’s 30% interest in NPR-A leases
Kay Cashman Petroleum News publisher and managing editor
On Sept. 23, Anadarko Petroleum’s spokesman in Alaska confirmed rumors that the Houston-based independent had purchased ChevronTexaco’s lease interests in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
“We acquired all of Chevron’s 30 percent interest in the (33) leases it had in NPR-A,” Mark Hanley told Petroleum News. “Chevron’s interest is being transferred to Anadarko and should be recorded in the next few days.”
The 33 leases, which are in the Northeast NPR-A, were originally owned by a partnership of BP Exploration (Alaska) (50 percent), ChevronTexaco (30 percent) and ConocoPhillips Alaska (20 percent).
In a deal driven by Anadarko, it and NPR-A partner ConocoPhillips acquired BP’s 50 percent interest in the 33 leases earlier this year.
Hanley would not comment on whether or not ConocoPhillips will exercise its partnership option on the 30 percent interest Anadarko purchased from Chevron.
Although neither Anadarko nor ConocoPhillips has commented publicly on the exact terms of their agreement in NPR-A, ConocoPhillips told Petroleum News this past summer that all leases owned by the companies in NPR-A are jointly owned. Lease records show either a 78/22 split in favor of ConocoPhillips, which is the split ConocoPhillips opted for in the BP portion of the 33 leases, or a 60/40 split — in favor of ConocoPhillips — which are the percentages the two companies hold in the Puviaq leases west of Teshekpuk Lake. Trailblazer wells plugged and abandoned The 33 leases acquired from BP and Chevron include the Trailblazer prospect northwest of the village of Nuiqsut where BP, in partnership with ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips, drilled two oil exploration wells in the first part of 2001, the G-1 Trailblazer and the H-1 Trailblazer.
A federal Bureau of Land Management official told Petroleum News Sept. 24 that the H-1 Trailblazer well has been “plugged and permanently abandoned, and the wellhead totally removed.”
However, the BLM official said the Christmas tree was left at G-1 Trailblazer “in case the operator wanted to go back in. But they’ve since decided not to and are waiting” for the right ground and weather “conditions to go back out there and remove the valves and pipes.”
Both wells have been “plugged and permanently abandoned according to state and federal standards,” the official said. Out in a blaze The 2001 Trailblazer wells were the last wildcat wells BP drilled in Alaska.
In January 2001, two months before BP spud the wells, BP Exploration (Alaska) President Richard Campbell said in a guest editorial in Petroleum News that BP had launched its “most aggressive exploration program in a decade” on Alaska’s North Slope, planning to spend more than $800 million that year on capital projects and exploration. Campbell said the company would drill six exploration wells, three of which were slated for its Trailblazer prospect in NPR-A.
BP’s 2001 Trailblazer program had a price tag of approximately $30 million and involved building a 70-mile ice road to the first ice drilling pad, 50 miles of which was across sea ice and 20 miles onshore across tundra. Two additional ice drilling pads, plus 10 miles of supporting ice roads, were planned for the second and third wells, the last of which did not get drilled.
Before the end of that year, BP would announce a halt to all frontier exploration in Alaska, including drilling in NPR-A. The company, however, has remained committed to infield exploration and development, as well as to finding a way to market the North Slope’s stranded natural gas.
| 