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Entek looks to change name to XCD Energy, begins new chapter
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
As this issue of Petroleum News goes into production, Entek Energy Ltd.’s shareholders were set to meet Aug. 1 to vote on a name change to XCD Energy Ltd.
The new name is part of the Perth, Australia independent’s re-branding as it commences a new chapter in its history as an active oil explorer in Alaska.
The ASX-listed firm holds a 100% working interest in 149,590 acres west of the central North Slope, which it calls Project Peregrine.
The acreage is on the same Nanushuk oil trend as ConocoPhillips’ Willow discoveries to the north of the leases that Entek acquired in its purchase of Emerald House LLC (see map adjacent to this story).
Dougal Ferguson, managing director of Entek, was the driving force behind a sister company and its subsidiary’s entry into Alaska, starting with the acquisition of three leases in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska from veteran Alaska investor and independent Paul Craig.
Elixir Petroleum and its subsidiary Emerald House, which had some of the same major shareholders as Entek, closed on the sale of those leases and 10 adjoining NPR-A leases in April, giving Entek a total of 14 leases.
In its July 31, quarterly activity report for the three-month period ending June 30, Entek said that in addition to closing on Emerald House, it had finished reprocessing 365 miles of 2D seismic data originally acquired by the U.S. Geological Survey in the 1970s and 1980s. The reprocessed lines cover both Entek’s leases and the Willow field and show a “significant improvement in data quality in the post reprocessing images, Entek said.
The reprocessed data, along with other regional seismic and well data, is now being integrated into a more detailed study, called the Integrated Nanushuk Technical Regional Overview or INTRO project, using experts in the fields of sequence stratigraphy, basin modelling, geochemistry, petrophysics and core scanning technology that the company said will provide it with “significantly improved understanding of the still emerging Nanushuk play.”
The INTRO project is expected to be completed by late September.
As of June 30, Entek held cash reserves of $1.6 million and had no debt.
- KAY CASHMAN
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