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Producers 2025: HEX CI advances Alaska energy independence
Subsidiary Furie Operating has two new Kitchen Lights Unit wells producing 3,000 mcf a day each, plans four wells in 2026 Kay Cashman Petroleum News
On July 24, 2025, HEX Cook Inlet's wholly owned subsidiary Furie Operating Alaska brought online two new gas wells in the Kitchen Lights Unit at the successful completion of its 2025 summer drilling program.
The wells are performing as designed at more than 3 million cubic feet of natural gas per day each.
Furie used Hilcorp's Spartan 151 jack-up for its 2025 $40 million program.
In addition to expanding Alaska's natural gas supply, the summer drilling program enhanced the competitiveness of local gas markets by broadening access to resources and reducing reliance on imported energy.
Additionally, the KLU A-2A well was successfully worked over in late June 2025 and has returned to production, further strengthening HEX Cook Inlet's operational capacity in the Cook Inlet basin.
The Julius R. Platform in the Kitchen Lights Unit, or KLU, has been renamed the Allegra Leigh Platform, honoring the first granddaughter of John and Candace Hendrix -- a fourth generation Alaskan.
Born and raised in Alaska, Hendrix is the owner of HEX, the parent of HEX Cook Inlet.
Hendrix formed the HEX companies for the purpose of purchasing Furie, its sister companies and their Cook Inlet assets -- principally to switch the Cook Inlet Kitchen Lights field from foreign and Outside ownership to Alaskan ownership.
He accomplished this on June 30, 2020, making the purchase from a Delaware bankruptcy court.
Furie is the only 100% Alaskan-owned oil and gas production company in Alaska. Furie and its parent HEX Cook Inlet are headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska, and are passionate about developing Alaska's resources for Alaskans.
Furie operates only in Cook Inlet and only produces natural gas for Alaskans.
More surface well slots On March 21, 2025, Hendrix told Petroleum News that contractors working for Furie Operating have completed the implementation of surface well slots and conductor tubing on platform, which will enable up to 12 wells to be operated from the platform.
Before this the platform was only able to handle up to six wells. The platform, offshore in the Cook Inlet, is used to produce gas from the Kitchen Lights gas field.
The platform upgrade will enable a significant increase in the gas production capacity and reliability from the Kitchen Lights field.
Hendrix said that operating more wells from the platform gives his company greater confidence in signing long-term gas supply contracts, given the potential to have backup wells in support of gas production.
In its most recent plan of operations Furie had indicated an intent to increase the well capacity from six to eight wells, but it has now proven possible to double the capacity to 12 wells.
"It gives us options ... the more options you have, the better chances you have," Hendrix said.
Having more wells also enables the operating costs for the platform to spread across the additional wells, he added.
Hendrix's plan with the additional well capacity is to drill more field development wells, directionally drilled within a 3-mile radius of the platform.
Four wells in 2026 At that time Hendrix said if the drilling of two wells was successful in 2025 (and it was), Furie would like to move forward with the drilling of four wells in 2026.
The company is also looking at additional drilling in 2027.
The Kitchen Lights Unit has gas resources in two pools: the Sterling pool and the Beluga pool. However, given that production from the Sterling pool tends to contain large amounts of water, Furie has been focusing its development on the Beluga pool.
In early 2019, before Hendrix took over Furie, the gas pipeline from the platform to the shore became plugged by ice given the high level of water production from the field. Under Hendrix Furie installed a water treatment facility on the platform to enable clean water to be discharged into the sea rather than be passed down the pipeline.
Hendrix said that the recent drilling of an additional well has increased the Kitchen Lights gas production from 5% to 7.5% of the total gas production from the Cook Inlet basin. The drilling of two further wells should then increase this to somewhere in the range of 10% to 12%. Hendrix said the company hopes to eventually further increase its production to a 25% level.
This comes at a time when there are increasing concerns about the future adequacy of Cook Inlet gas production.
Multiple drilling targets Hendrix said that the Kitchen Lights field reservoir rocks are very fractured, with gas resources acting rather like streams meandering through the subsurface. And the "streams" operate at different depths.
Essentially, he said, it is a question of drilling into these resources, while gradually stepping out from the location of the platform.
"We've identified 27 well targets within a 3-mile radius of our platform," Hendrix said.
With a maximum of 12 wells that could be drilled from the platform, the drilling strategy involves first targeting gas that is relatively distant from the platform and then drilling sidetrack wells to access resources that are closer to the platform.
At this time, Furie is focused on development drilling and gas production, rather than exploration drilling, Hendrix said. When people need gas, the question becomes whether to risk a month or two drilling an exploration well, versus drilling a couple of development wells and then bringing the wells online for gas production, he said.
With firm contracts for natural gas supplies to Southcentral Alaska gas and electricity utilities expected to fall short of gas demand in the next three years, the utilities and the gas producers will need to make some critical decisions over how best to ensure the continuity of energy supplies to Alaska residents and businesses.
In a May 20, 2025, meeting of Commonwealth North, several experts on the subject presented their assessments of the situation. Hendrix was one of those experts. He argued for more production, for the feasibility of bolstering gas supplies through more drilling in the Cook Inlet basin.
"We should not be having this conversation. There's gas there. We just have to develop the gas," Hendrix said.
With regard to discussions about future gas supplies from outside the Cook Inlet, he said: "Bringing gas from the Lower 48 is, to me, a kind of slap in the face ... but we're kind of pushing ourselves in that direction."
On the other hand, given the isolated gas market in Alaska, there is a cap on how much gas can be produced and sold, he added.
Hendrix emphasized the distinction between the upstream gas producers, like Furie, and the utilities that sell energy products. While the producers risk capital to bring energy sources online, the utilities can move forward based on Regulatory Commission of Alaska approval of what they are doing, he said.
And decisions on how much capital to put at risk from drilling wells are impacted by issues such as renewable energy replacing gas use, the potential for a future North Slope gas line and the possibility of importing LNG.
Hendrix cited property taxes on gas producer facilities and state royalties as impediments to drilling for more gas production.
Hendrix also questioned assumptions that Cook Inlet gas is expensive, arguing that the gas is actually the fourth cheapest in the country at the meter.
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