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Escopeta preps for Cook Inlet exploration permit dance With three prospects in Cook Inlet, company is poised to provide needed gas for the region into the future, president says Steve Sutherlin PNA Managing Editor
Escopeta Oil and Gas Corp. of Houston is gearing up to drill on three different prospects in Cook Inlet and will apply for permits within the next 60 days, Escopeta President Danny S. Davis told PNA Jan. 23.
“We’ll try to get the first well done by 2003,” Davis said.
The company is still choosing the exact location for its wells, and is gathering the information it will need for permits, Davis said, adding that Escopeta will enlist the services of Fairweather Inc. to negotiate the permit process.
“Nothing happens fast in Alaska,” he said. “In south Texas, I could already have a rig running.”
Hunt for a jack-up rig Fairweather is also looking into finding a jack-up rig for Escopeta to use in the inlet, Davis said. Other companies that need it might share the cost of relocating the rig to Alaska.
Escopeta has not accepted any proposals yet from potential partners, but it anticipates it will have at least one other working interest partner in the wells.
Two of the prospects are on the east side of the inlet, and one is on the west side, Davis said. On the east side, the East Kitchen prospect and the Kitchen prospect lie near Middle Ground Shoal. The third prospect, North Alexander, is in the Upper Susitna area on the west side.
East Kitchen is likely to see the first drilling, and Davis is hopeful that the field will approach the size of McArthur River, about 600 million barrels of oil. Escopeta’s data suggests East Kitchen might contain 200 million barrels to 500 million barrels of oil, and 2 trillion cubic feet to 5 tcf of natural gas, he said. The structure is big, about 60,000 acres, with four-way closure, and Davis is confident it will pay.
“Any monkey can find oil in a four-way closure in Cook Inlet,” Davis said.
The North Alexander prospect is smaller; it might contain as much as 600 billion cubic feet of gas, Davis said.
Davis sees Phillips as logical partner Davis said Escopeta’s prospects put it in the best position to provide the major pools of gas the Cook Inlet area will need to expand industrial use and maintain supplies for heating and electric generation as current wells decline in production.
“People say there’s not much gas left in Cook Inlet, but they’re working off of wells that were drilled 40 years ago,” Davis said. “Cosmopolitan was drilled 38 years ago, or so.”
Cosmopolitan is a 24,600-acre joint state and federal unit in Cook Inlet north of Anchor Point that is operated by Phillips Alaska Inc. The prospect’s discovery well, Pennzoil Starichkof State No. 1, was drilled in January 1967 from an offshore location and penetrated a hydrocarbon-bearing section. A second well spud in August 1967 is approximately 2.5 miles north of the discovery well. (See story Nov. 25, 2001 PNA).
Phillips is drilling directionally into an offshore target from an onshore location.
“We’re doing essentially the same thing (at East Kitchen), it’s just that no one’s ever stuck a bit in it,” Davis said.
Phillips and Forest Oil Corp., the other majority working interest owner in Cosmopolitan, control 90.52 percent of the unit area. Four minority working interest owners all hold interests in the lease held by the discovery well. Forest Oil has the majority interest in that lease, 41 percent; 25 percent is held by Devon Energy Corp.; 25 percent is held by ExxonMobil; 4.7 percent by Rosewood Resources Inc.; and 4.2 percent by Hunt Petroleum Corp.
Davis said he has an overriding royalty interest in Cosmopolitan, and that he once held the lease with Stewart Petroleum Co. and others. Phillips would be a logical partner on East Kitchen, he said.
“We put together the deal on Cosmos and Phillips seems pretty happy with it,” Davis said. “If I were them I’d come see me about (East Kitchen). What are they waiting for?”
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