Cook Inlet Energy gets numerous leases

Eric Lidji

For Petroleum News

The November Alaska oil and gas lease report was a busy one for Cook Inlet Energy Inc.

The local subsidiary of Tennessee-based Miller Energy Resources, Inc. was issued five leases from the May 2013 Cook Inlet Areawide lease sale — one of which, ADL 392476, it subsequently forfeited. The company also got 11 leases in the Susitna Basin, and the state approved the formation of the four-lease Otter unit on the west side of Cook Inlet.

Aside from the Cook Inlet Energy leases, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources also issued leases to Hilcorp Alaska LLC, Woodstone Resources LLC and Aurora Gas LLC from the May 2013 sale, which was the third-most lucrative in Cook Inlet history.

NordAq Energy Inc. also bid in the sale, but forfeited its single lease, ADL 392477.

Also in November, the state allowed Buccaneer Cosmopolitan LLC to transfer 0.875 percent royalty interest in three leases at the nearshore Cosmopolitan prospect — ADL 394403, ADL 391900 and ADL 18790 — to Buccaneer Royalties LLC, but denied a second request by Buccaneer Cosmopolitan to transfer 3 percent royalty in ADL 391900 and 0.562509 percent royalty interest in ADL 384403 to Stellar Oil & Gas LLC.

The state also allowed NordAq to transfer small royalty interests — 0.1 percent and 0.05 percent — in one lease, ADL 391596, to six investors: Paul Gibson, James Holland, Alexandra Dupree, Anthony Wigram, the Ilona Jean Hodson Farr 2005 Trust and the Ilona Jean Hodson Farr Irrevocable Alaska Trust. The lease is located just outside the boundaries of the NordAq-operated Shadura unit in the northern Kenai Peninsula.

On the North Slope, Paul M. Basinski transferred 100 percent working interest and 87.5 percent royalty interest in four White Hills areas leases to Burgundy Xploration LLC.

The Houston-based independent Burgundy shares an address with Basinski in state records. Burgundy acquired two leases adjacent to the Basinski leases in the November 2013 lease sale. The four leases — ADL 392298, ADL 392299, ADL 392301 and ADL 392302 — include the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Franklin Bluffs No. 1 well.

The state also terminated ADL 391369 in November for “nonpayment of rent.” The lease is a geothermal lease at Mount Spurr held by Chad Attermann, according to state records.

—A copyrighted oil and gas lease map from Mapmakers Alaska was a research tool used in preparing this story.