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Cook Inlet Energy reports Osprey platform progress Anchorage-based producer is busy reworking wells, and planning a variety of onshore drilling plus a subsea pipeline across the inlet Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
Cook Inlet Energy LLC reports it has gone “four for four” in reworking wells successfully on its Osprey platform on the inlet’s west side.
Two of the wells are producing natural gas for the company’s field operations. That has eliminated the need to purchase fuel gas from third parties, resulting in a savings of about $500,000 per month, a March 20 press release said.
“Once a gas contract is in place, we will increase production from these wells, becoming a net seller of gas,” the company said.
Cook Inlet Energy, based in Anchorage, is a subsidiary Miller Energy Resources Inc., headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn. Miller is a small company, but its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
With Miller’s help, Cook Inlet Energy acquired the shut-in Osprey platform in a bankruptcy sale in late 2009. Since then, the company has been working to fix and reactivate damaged wells.
Osprey is the southernmost platform in Cook Inlet and sits over the Redoubt Shoal field, which Miller calls its largest reserve base.
Cook Inlet Energy has reworked two Osprey oil wells, and over the next year plans sidetracks of two more.
The company has lots more going on with other properties on the inlet’s west side.
It has drilled an exploratory well on its onshore Otter gas prospect, located about nine miles north of the ConocoPhillips-operated Beluga River gas field. The company plans further work on that well, and is aiming to drill a well at another onshore gas prospect called Olsen Creek.
In the company’s mature West McArthur River unit, Cook Inlet Energy says it intends to drill two oil and gas wells, as well as the Sword No. 1 well adjacent to West Mac.
Pipeline engineering continues Cook Inlet Energy also is pursuing a midstream project, a 29-mile subsea pipeline to connect west inlet oil fields with the Tesoro refinery on the east side. The company calls it the Trans-Foreland Pipeline.
Such a pipeline could negate the need for tankers shuttling oil across the inlet, which is prone to dangerous ice floes in winter. But the pipeline would be costly at an estimated $50 million.
“We hope to finish the engineering on our Trans-Foreland pipeline later this year,” the March 20 press release said.
Miller Energy reported total production for the three months ended Jan. 31 at 82,327 barrels of oil equivalent. Most of the company’s production comes from the Cook Inlet basin. Miller reported a quarterly operating loss of $6.5 million.
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