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Winstar continues to study North Slope seismic data Alaska independent isn’t planning drilling yet, but is evaluating data for leases near Point McIntyre and between Liberty and Badami Alan Bailey Petroleum News Staff Writer
Jim Weeks, president and CEO of Winstar Petroleum told Petroleum News in early October that Winstar is continuing to evaluate seismic data for several of its North Slope leases. The evaluations have not yet reached a point where company officials can decide on additional drilling. Winstar’s first North Slope well, the Oliktok Point State No. 1, came up dry last year.
Winstar and its sister company, Ultrastar Exploration, have more than 20,000 acres of state leases on the North Slope. West of Point McIntyre Weeks said Winstar has purchased a license to use some 3-D seismic data for an area in the Prudhoe Bay unit, just west of the Point McIntyre operating area. The seismic was originally shot by ARCO and is now owned by ConocoPhillips, BP and ExxonMobil.
“We were successful in obtaining a license to that data from the owners … and that data is currently being analyzed by … Petrotechnical Resources of Alaska (PRA),” Weeks said.
Winstar has two leases in the area west of Point McIntyre and has obtained enough seismic to assess whether there’s a promising-looking prospect. We already had some 2-D seismic, but you really need the 3-D data, he said. “We’re hopeful that we’ll find something that we want to invest in, but it’s just too early to say right now.”
The need to negotiate access to existing oil and gas facilities would impact the timeframe for any development in this area — 100 percent agreement from the owners of the Lisburne and Point McIntyre facilities would be essential. However, Weeks doesn’t see that agreement as a major obstacle because the same owners approved the Oliktok Point deal.
“We do have a precedent out there,” he said. The Liberty/Badami area A subsidiary of Chroma Energy of Sugar Land, Texas, has completed an analysis of some 3-D seismic data that Winstar obtained from BP (Exploration) Alaska for the Liberty and Badami areas. PRA is doing further analysis of the data. Winstar has two sets of leases between BP’s Liberty prospect and BP’s Badami unit.
Weeks expects that any development in this area would require access to the Badami facilities, which are currently in warm shutdown. The Badami pipeline has plenty of capacity but there would need to be a sizable oil find for the economics of using the pipeline to work, he said.
“If PRA identifies the structure or structures that justify drilling investments, we’ll start serious negotiations with BP to get access,” Weeks said.
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