Texas independent catches Cook Inlet gas fever

Steve Sutherlin

Saddleback Resources LLC, a new player in Alaska, took a block of five tracts in Cook Inlet for which it bid $214,775 at the state oil and gas lease sale May 9 in Anchorage.

Saddleback was the highest bid per acre in the sale at $22.18. The tracts it purchased are adjacent to the southern boundary of the North Cook Inlet unit.

Saddleback is a wholly owned subsidiary of Epic Oil and Gas of Irving, Texas, a private company of 15 employees with additional oil and gas properties in south Texas. Epic is in the process of changing its name to Prodigy Oil and Gas, company officials said.

According to Lee Higgins, vice president of exploration and production for Epic, the Cook Inlet sale was brought to the company’s attention by David J. Doherty, a former ARCO Alaska Inc. geologist Epic had hired. Doherty spent 14 years in Alaska with ARCO.

Higgins said his company plans to do geologic and geophysical assessment of the tracts this year but probably will not do seismic work until 2002.

“We’re very pleased to get these tracts; they have significant exploration potential. It’s a new dawning for Epic; these are bigger reserves than we normally look for,” Higgins said.

For now, the company’s Alaska activities will focus on these five tracts, he said. “We’re excited about Alaska but we’re going to try not to rush in too hot and heavy.”

The company has no connection to Epic Oil and Gas Ltd. of Vancouver, B.C.