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A license for Ahtna Native corporation wants to explore for gas in state land near Glennallen Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The director of Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas has published a finding, saying that it is issuing an oil and gas exploration license to Ahtna Inc., the Native regional corporation for the Copper River region. The license, called the Tolsona Exploration License, encompasses about 72 square miles of state land west of Glennallen in the Copper River basin. The finding, published on Sept. 30, says that, in evaluating the license application, the state studied environmental and other factors in a 950-square-mile area straddling the eastern end of the Glenn Highway.
State exploration licenses provide a means of access to state lands for oil and gas exploration in regions outside the state’s major oil and gas provinces. Any requests for reconsideration of Ahtna’s license must be submitted to the division within 20 days of the issuance notice.
Address energy costs Michelle Anderson, president of Ahtna, told Petroleum News in an Oct. 1 email that the Native corporation considers obtaining the license to be a first step towards addressing energy costs in the Glennallen area while also providing employment opportunities for the corporation’s shareholders.
“Ahtna Inc., an Alaska Native corporation headquartered in Glennallen, fully supports the Alaska DNR commissioner’s finding in issuing an oil and gas exploration license to Ahtna in the Tolsona Lake area west of Glennallen,” Anderson said. “The Ahtna Inc. board will be assessing their financial investment scenarios to develop natural gas in the Copper River area. Exploration activities will begin late 2013 with a minimum investment of $415,000 (US) over the next 1 to 2 years.”
Huge basin The Copper River basin, occupying a huge lowland area between the Alaska Range, the Chugach Mountains, the Talkeetna Mountains and the Wrangell Mountains, has petroleum geology quite similar to that of the prolific Cook Inlet basin to the west. However, although the Mesozoic rock unit that sources oil in the Cook Inlet region is known to exist in the Copper River area, differences in the precise nature of the rocks are thought to make the Copper River basin more prospective for natural gas than for oil.
Any commercial gas resource discovered in the Copper River area, especially if close to the road system, could presumably be used for local power generation.
The new exploration license area lies immediately west of Ahtna land where Texas-based independent Rutter and Wilbanks drilled a gas exploration well and a series of sidetrack wells between 2005 and 2009. Rutter and Wilbanks reported a possible gas find in its Glennallen well. However, the company eventually abandoned the drilling project, having been stymied by severe technical problems associated with water production and abnormally high subsurface pressures.
Sparse exploration And, in general, exploration of the Copper River basin has been very sparse.
According to information provided in the state’s finding for Ahtna’s exploration license, a total of 14 exploration wells have been drilled in the basin, starting in 1953. One well, the Moose Creek Unit No. 1, drilled in 1963 near the future site of the Rutter and Wilbanks well, encountered gas and water at a depth of 5,430 feet, but production testing was not conducted. And, like the Rutter and Wilbanks well, this well encountered subsurface overpressure at a depth of 6,075 feet.
The Salmonberry Lake Unit No. 1 well drilled in 1963 to the north of the new exploration license area encountered multiple zones with high contents of organic carbon and with associated methane gas at depths ranging from 2,600 feet to 3,900 feet.
The Ahtna Inc. No 1 well drilled in 1979 near the village of Gulkana, to the northeast of the exploration license area, encountered a trace of gas in one subsurface zone.
Earlier license The Rutter and Wilbanks Glennallen well was an offshoot of an exploration program initiated in 2000 when Anschutz Exploration Corp. obtained a state exploration license in the Copper River basin. That license included the area of the new Ahtna license but covered a much larger acreage of state land. In addition to the territory included within the state exploration license, Anschutz’s area of exploration interest included some Ahtna land.
Forest Oil became a 50-50 partner with Anschutz in the Copper Valley exploration venture; Rutter and Wilbanks, together with its partner Delphi, also bought into the project. Some 2-D seismic was shot within the exploration area.
In 2005, with the exploration license due to expire, Forest Oil and Anschutz successfully converted a part of the license area relatively close to Glennallen to state leases. And, at about the same time, Rutter and Wilbanks started its ill-fated drilling project on Ahtna land.
Pacific Energy subsequently bought out all of Forest Oil’s Alaska properties, including the Copper River basin leases. However, Pacific Energy later became bankrupt. The Division of Oil and Gas has told Petroleum News that the leases subsequently terminated because of the non-payment of lease rents.
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