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State approves lease deals in May
ERIC LIDJI For Petroleum News
The state approved a scattering of lease transactions in May.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources approved a transfer of 11.25 percent working interest and between 9 and 9.84375 percent royalty interest in 56 Beaufort Sea leases from Armstrong subsidiary 70 & 148 LLC to partner GMT Exploration Co. LLC.
For several years, the two companies have been partnering on a North Slope exploration program operated by Repsol E&P USA Inc. Armstrong recently took over the program.
The state issued 121 leases on the North Slope to Accumulate Energy Alaska LLC. The independent, along with its partner Burgundy Xploration LLC, acquired the leases in a November 2015 sale for $4.74 million. The acreage expands existing holdings the partners previously acquired on either side of the Dalton highway and the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. The partners have expressed an interest in developing oil from source rocks.
In late 2015, the partners drilled the Icewine No. 1 exploration well from the Franklin Bluffs gravel pad adjacent to the haul road with an objective in the HRZ shale.
At the Point Thomson unit, the state rejected a request from ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc. to transfer 0.0066507 percent working interest and between 0.0053206 and 0.0058194 percent royalty interest in 12 leases to Sunlite International Inc.
Also at Point Thomson, the state is considering eight separate requests from three small investors to transfer royalty interests in values of less than 1 percent to related groups.
Cook Inlet In Cook Inlet, the independent New Energy Alaska LLC transferred 100 percent working interest and 84.2 percent royalty interest in two leases to Cook Inlet Oil & Gas Corp., which immediately changed its name to Alaska Natural Gas Corp. The offshore leases, ADL 391463 and ADL 391464, are between the Trading Bay and Redoubt units.
Cook Inlet Oil & Gas Corp. was created in November 2014, according to the state corporations database. The initial officers were Robert Fowler (president and treasurer) and David Johansson (secretary), both of Washington state. In May 2015, Johansson left the company, Louis Hoel became secretary and Jean-Robert Pronovost became treasurer.
New Energy Alaska was created in 2009 as Alaskan New Energy LLC, according to state records, and is currently owned entirely by Richard Stryken of Palmer, Alaska.
The state terminated an Apache Alaska Corp. lease for failure to pay rent. The offshore lease, ADL 392211, was just beyond the outer boundary of the Ninilchik unit. The state also terminated a small lease owned by Nancy Black Miller for failure to pay rent. The onshore lease, ADL 34898, was in the southern Kenai Peninsula, west of Nikolaevsk.
The state is considering six separate requests from the Spielman Family Trust to transfer small royalty interests, less than 1 percent, in two leases at the Tiger Eye unit, ADL 391103 and ADL 391104, to Terry A. Spielman, Linda S. Doupe and Helene M. Dahl.
—A copyrighted oil and gas lease map from Mapmakers Alaska was a research tool used in preparing this story.
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