Forest Oil plans to spend $225 million in inlet over next five years

Kristen Nelson

Forest Oil Corp. is activity exploring for gas reserves in the Cook Inlet area, Forest Oil Corp.’s Gary Carlson told the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Natural Gas Pipelines in a Nov. 5 letter. Carlson, senior vice president with Forest, said that while the company’s current operations are focused on oil in the inlet, “our strategy includes finding and developing gas reserves in our areas of activity.” The company “has defined multiple gas prospects on our leased acreage” in the Cook Inlet basin, and is working on both the geologic and business aspects to turn them into “specific drillable prospects.”

Forest Oil’s Cook Inlet drilling budget for the next five years is $225 million, Carlson said, including development and exploratory drilling to both oil and gas targets.

The committee had asked if there was any legislation it should consider to advance natural gas development in the state.

Carlson responded that Forest Oil (and its predecessor Forcenergy Inc.) has been involved in the permitting processes “in Alaska for the last few years and it is not an efficient system. It takes too much time, adds little or no value to the state’s interest and is destructive to industry’s investment returns.

“In our opinion,” Carlson said, “the problem lies in the administration and regulatory agencies. We have not identified any legislative solutions to this problem at this time.”