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Oil Patch Insider ConocoPhillips looks to farm-out North Slope acreage Kay Cashman, Gary Park and Allen Baker
A Petroleum News source at ConocoPhillips Alaska said Nov. 3 that the company is looking to farm-out exploration acreage on Alaska’s North Slope.
“We’re offering deals to companies to come and drill some of our prospects,” he said.
He would not clarify whether or not ConocoPhillips intended only to offer the prospects to others to drill or was willing to handle operations if it was able to bring in partners to help spread the costs.
ConocoPhillips Alaska spokeswoman Dawn Patience had no information on the subject, but did say, “that’s what we did at McCovey,” referring to predecessor Phillips Alaska’s deal with Alberta Energy Corp. (predecessor to EnCana) which allowed AEC to earn a 33.3 percent interest in the McCovey leases through a farm-out agreement for the first well in the Beaufort Sea prospect. ConocoPhillips initially intended to operate the first exploration well but later allowed EnCana to take over as operator.
See Petroleum News story archives at www.PetroleumNews.com. Look for the Aug. 28, 2000 article titled, “Phillips Alaska, Chevron, Alberta Energy form exploration alliance.” Governor meets with explorers Dec. 9 Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski will meet Dec. 9 in Juneau with companies interested in exploring for oil and gas in Alaska to discuss what the state can do to encourage more exploration, a state official told Petroleum News Dec. 1.
Both independents and majors have been invited to the meeting which will also include other state officials, such as Tom Irwin, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, and Mark Myers, director of the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas.
Some of the companies on the governor’s invitation list are current North Slope and Cook Inlet explorers, such as Anadarko, EnCana, Armstrong, Pioneer, and Evergreen.
Others, such as Petro-Canada, have acreage in Alaska but are not actively exploring here.
And others are new to Alaska, such as Italy-based Eni S.p.A., which reportedly accepted the governor’s invitation.
Eni’s web page says it is “present in 70 countries” and produces approximately 1.5 million barrels of oil per day. The company’s 2006 production target, which includes international growth, is to exceed 1.8 million barrels per day.
In his invitation to explorers, which talked a lot about the importance of independents to Alaska’s future, the governor said, “In order to encourage your participation in our state, I need to know what information you need and what barriers stand in your way.”
Division of Oil and Gas staff will open the Dec. 9 meeting with an “overview of exploration opportunities and exploration incentives beginning at 10:00 am,” Murkowski said.
The governor will meet with the group beginning at 1:30 pm, followed by private meetings that afternoon and the next morning with companies that request them. The private meetings will include the governor, Irwin, Myers and senior staff. Accord hailed by Yukon and Alaska leaders A transportation corridor containing a natural gas pipeline, railway and fiber optic cables linking Alaska and the Yukon are all part of a dream Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski is confident will become reality.
But above all he is emphatic that the overland gas line from the North Slope, across Canada to the Lower 48 “will be built,” he said in Whitehorse, Yukon, Dec. 1.
Making the trip to sign an accord with Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie, Murkowski invoked the spirit of the 1898 Gold Rush in raising hopes that the accord can signal a new era of cooperation in tourism, transportation, trade and commerce and resource development.
He described the accord as an “exciting opportunity to expand our historic relationship.”
What lies ahead, he suggested, is the prospect of what he called a “corridor of opportunity” incorporating a rail connection from Alaska to northern British Columbia, railheads through the Yukon, the gas line and fiber optic cables.
To broaden his vision, the governor is inviting the premiers of British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and Northwest Territories to a spring summit in Juneau to discuss emerging developments in the north.
Fentie also plans to attend an Alaska State Transportation Committee meeting in January on the proposed railroad project.
“Instead of working in isolation, the state of Alaska and the Yukon are now going to be collaborating in areas of common interest,” Fentie said.
But former Yukon premier Pat Duncan, noting she had signed a similar pact with former Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles, said the two current leaders are suggesting “they have somehow reinvented the wheel ... they haven’t.”
The Yukon’s New Democratic Party leader Todd Hardy was equally skeptical, describing the signing as a “photo-op” for Fentie who “just needs a good news story.”
On the gas line, Murkowski said there will be a new push to include a guaranteed floor price for North Slope gas when U.S. legislators resume work on the stalled energy bill.
But one Insider source says with Canadian National now leasing the British Columbia Railroad, “extending the Alaska Railroad to the Canadian border may be an easier sell than a gas line.” Database on spill equipment compiled One of Alaska’s regional advisory councils is building a database for equipment used in oil spill prevention and response.
The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council has invited makers and sellers of oil spill prevention and response equipment to submit information for its electronic database.
The information will be freely available on the Internet for companies and spill response organizations that need to review available technology.
Submission deadline is Feb. 29.
Information on the format for the database can be found at www.pwsrcac.org/BAT4all.html. Dan Gilson, the project manager, can be reached at 907-834-5040 or via email at [email protected].
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