Clearflame doesn’t take exploration license in Alaska’s Susitna basin

The Alaska Division of Oil and Gas said Sept. 25 that it intended to issue three exploration licenses in the Susitna basin north of Anchorage, two to Forest Oil and one to Clearflame Resources.

Jim Hansen, the division’s lease sale manager, told Petroleum News Nov. 5 that Forest executed its two exploration licenses, but Clearflame did not take the 478,584.25-acre license for which it applied last April.

Forcenergy (now Forest Oil) applied for two Susitna basin exploration licenses in April 2000 and the division began work on a best interest finding for the area.

In April 2003, Denver, Colo.-based Clearflame applied for an exploration license in the study area, mainly to the south and west of Forest Oil’s proposals. Hansen said that Clearflame — or any other applicant — could come back in April, when state statutes allow companies to propose licenses, with a new proposal for the area.

The state has done the title work, Hansen said, and has a best interest finding in place, so it would be a shorter process than what occurred when the division received the first Susitna basin proposals in April 2000.

There would be a public comment period, he said, and a request for competing proposals, and if required the state would do a supplement to the best interest finding.

But because the finding is in place, Hansen said, another proposal within the Susitna basin study area “would be on a faster track.”