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Apache working 800,000 Cook Inlet acres
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Apache Corp., the largest oil and gas lease acreage holder in Cook Inlet, is targeting oil in the basin, and has begun an extensive 3-D seismic program.
While the company holds more than 800,000 acres in the Cook Inlet basin, only a portion of that is state acreage so the state’s 500,000-acre limit doesn’t apply, Paul Abokhair, senior commercial advisor with Apache, told the Senate Resources Committee Oct. 20 at a Kenai hearing.
The majority of the company’s acreage, he said, is land held through Cook Inlet Region Inc. or the Tyonek Native Corp. (Editor’s note: The Division of Oil and Gas shows current Apache state acreage at some 240,000 acres.)
“We are here for oil, and we believe the Cook Inlet has a lot of potential that has not been tapped yet,” Abokhair said.
Shooting 3-D now There is very limited 3-D seismic in Cook Inlet, so over the next three years Apache will be shooting an extensive 3-D program in the Cook Inlet basin.
Abokhair said the 3-D program covers both onshore and offshore acreage.
“We’re going to operate here for many, many years — we’re on a 25- to 30-year plan for the Cook Inlet,” he said.
The three-year seismic shoot is being done with a wireless nodal system. Nodes are set out by people or machines, whichever is easiest, he said.
The onshore nodes weigh about five pounds each and a man with a backpack can carry eight of these nodes, which are laid out use GPS on a grid system.
Abokhair said the onshore hole shots will have a minimum impact, with 1-inch holes drilled to about 35 feet using small helicopter transported drills and compressors. When the shot is complete, the hole is filled. Offshore air guns will be used, although Abokhair said that for some shallow areas Apache will be using onshore detonations.
No transmitters The nodes, onshore and offshore, are GPS-located, and have no transmitters, they are just listening devices, Abokhair said.
After the onshore explosive is shot off — or air guns for offshore work — the nodes are collected, the information is downloaded and the nodes are put back out again.
He said Apache estimates 6,000 node positions for the onshore work and about 2,000 offshore.
Apache has been going through the permitting process. The company has been in Cook Inlet for about a year, and started seismic operations about a month ago, Abokhair said.
“And the way our plan is set up, our president has already announced that we will do some exploratory drilling in 2012 and so I can’t tell you where, but we are anticipating that we will be doing some exploratory drilling in 2012,” Abokhair said.
Steven Ferris, Apache’s chief executive officer, said in an Aug. 4 conference call that Apache planned to begin a 3-D seismic campaign in Cook Inlet this year, and said the company hoped to have enough of that seismic shot by December, and first-pass processing done, “and hope to drill a well in 2012.”
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