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New player on a roll
Gardes buys North Fork unit; looking for more natural gas assets in Alaska
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
In a Nov. 6 interview with Petroleum News Bob Gardes, president of Gardes Holdings, confirmed his firm has purchased the southern Kenai Peninsula North Fork unit and is in the market for more gas properties in Alaska: “North Fork is just the first one of several we have been negotiating.”
Gardes purchased North Fork, which produced an average of 3,296 thousand cubic feet of natural gas per day in September, from Cook Inlet Energy, a Glacier Oil and Gas company.
“We see the Cook Inlet basin as one of the four top gas regions in the world,” Gardes said, noting that his interest in stranded gas properties is mainly in Cook Inlet and Interior Alaska, not the North Slope.
Gardes Holdings, which was registered in Nevada four years ago, is affiliated with his main firm Gardes Energy Services of Lafayette, Louisiana, which was incorporated in May 1977. Both companies are privately owned.
Gardes is not interested in doing business as a service company in Alaska; rather he is looking to be a top gas producer.
“Natural gas is the fuel of the future. We hope to be gold star presence among oil and gas companies in Cook Inlet,” Gardes said. “We plan on acquiring our service needs from local Alaskan companies.”
Glacier focus on Badami When asked why his company sold North Fork, Glacier President Stephen Ratcliff told PN that right now Glacier’s focus is on the North Slope, particularly on the Badami unit, and selling the Cook Inlet gas producing asset helped provide needed capital.
Savant Alaska, a Glacier company, restarted the eastern North Slope Badami pad in October. During the 24 days the field produced that month it yielded more than 2,000 barrels of oil a day, Ratcliff said.
“We put the (North Fork) asset in someone’s hands who wants to invest in it despite the tough economic conditions,” Ratcliff said. “We did a phenomenal job with North Fork, but Gardes has got the ability to push it forward past what we’ve done. We’re happy for them. … We are excited to see someone who wants to come in and move it forward.”
Looking for bypassed gas “For the last 20 years we’ve been coming to Alaska,” Gardes said.
“We see opportunities in gas here,” he said, noting his company was one of the early pioneers of coalbed methane in the Lower 48.
“There is a lot of bypassed gas here because the deposits weren’t big enough” for the companies to bother with them, Gardes said. There also wasn’t a market in Southcentral Alaska. But eventually gas became the fuel of choice for heating buildings in much of Southcentral Alaska, while gas-fired generation became the favored source of electrical power.
“We think the future in the U.S. is gas. It burns 98% cleaner than oil and coal. It is a transformational resource,” he said.
Armstrong put North Fork online The North Fork unit’s 55th plan of development, or POD, was approved Jan 22, 2020.
The unit was formed in May 1965 but was not put into production until third quarter 2011 by a partnership led a Bill Armstrong company, Armstrong Cook Inlet Energy.
The field was discovered in 1965 by Chevron (then Standard Oil of California) in its hunt for oil. Chevron drilled the NFU No. 41-35 discovery well, which tested gas production from the Tyonek formation. It was certified capable of producing but subsequently shut-in because the company wanted oil, not natural gas.
Despite no production, the North Fork unit was kept alive through a series of negotiated extensions and annual POD approvals.
In its only foray into the Cook Inlet basin, successful North Slope player Armstrong acquired North Fork in 2007, reentered NFU No. 41-35 and drilled three new wells. They also acquired a 3D seismic survey over the field and built a 12-mile pipeline to join the Enstar line extension to Anchor Point.
Effective April 2014 Cook Inlet Energy, then a Miller Energy subsidiary and today part of Glacier Oil, acquired the unit and is the current operator.
Operator change needs approval Tom Stokes, director of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas, said he was pleased with what he knew of Gardes and that the company initially approached DNR about investing in Alaska several months before he heard about their deal with Glacier.
The transfer of operatorship from Cook Inlet Energy to Gardes, he said, has to be approved by the division.
In the meantime. Stokes said, Cook Inlet Energy would remain the operator. The sale itself, he noted, did not have to be approved by the division.
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