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Oil patch insider: Ovintiv denies visit; Borade new AEX chief; A2A Rail surveying
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
In response to a brief titled “Newfield revisits Alaska” in last week’s Petroleum News, Ovintiv communications director Cindy Hassler said July 13 that the company has no interest in investing in Alaska and sent no individuals bearing subsidiary Newfield Exploration business cards to the state.
In fact, no Ovintiv employees should be carrying Newfield business cards, she said, since they were all issued new Ovintiv cards in February and March.
Earlier this year, Encana rebranded itself Ovintiv and shifted its headquarters from Canada to the United States under the leadership of company President and CEO Doug Suttles, former president of BP Alaska.
Like many oil and gas companies, Ovintiv switched to unconventional (shale) oil and gas operations versus conventional, which Alaska has in abundance. The company also took on additional debt - a decision that makes Hassler’s denial even more believable since Ovintiv is not in a financial position to operate on the North Slope, where the rewards can be huge, but the costs are high.
Following substantial Ovintiv employee layoffs, in June Bloomberg quoted Hassler as saying: “Ovintiv is transitioning to lower production growth levels. … The new model we feel going forward will combine free cash generation, stronger balance sheet and modest growth. So more at maintenance activity levels.”
- Petroleum News
ASRC Exploration gets new president Long-time president of ASRC Exploration, Theresa Imm, has quietly retired from the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. subsidiary. Under her leadership AEX completed its first operated exploration well in Alaska in early 2016, when it drilled Placer No. 3 and that same year took over operatorship of the undeveloped North Slope Placer unit, which is adjacent to the Kuparuk River unit on the east and borders the Pikka unit on the west.
Chait Borade, a reservoir engineer who started with AEX in 2015 has stepped up to take Imm’s place as company president.
Borade has a BS and MS in petroleum engineering from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
- Kay Cashman
A2A Rail to begin surveying Canadian route this summer A2A, the Alaska to Alberta Railway, plans to start detailed land surveying along the Alberta segment of the proposed route this summer.
In June 2019 Alaska Railroad Corp. and Alaska to Alberta Railway Development Corp. announced a “master agreement of cooperation” to build a 1,500-mile connection between Alaska Railroad and Canadian railroads that also serve the Lower 48 states.
A2A said in a July 7 release that it has commissioned engineering firm HDR to begin detailed land surveying on the Alberta segment “immediately.”
Funding has been secured for the surveying and “A2A and its technical team will now embark on a 3-month planned process for field investigation and topographic modeling,” with the surveying part of an accelerated development effort which will allow A2A to engage in early field activities in Alberta within the next 3 to 6 months.
A2A said its goal is to have the railroad operational in the mid to latter part of this decade.
Last summer A2A said the entire project is expected to cost some $13 billion, with A2A bearing the project cost, including reimbursing any costs incurred by ARRC to advance the project.
If the project is completed, A2A would receive a long-term lease from ARRC to operate the new railroad.
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