Although he wouldn’t comment on the rumored sale of Aurora Gas to Apache Corp., Aurora Gas President Scott Pfoff says he and Vice President David Boelens took an old Aurora Power company, Aurora Exploration, “off the shelf” to bid in the State of Alaska’s recent Cook Inlet areawide oil and gas lease sale.
“We’re not giving up on Alaska at all,” Pfoff said.
Kaiser Francis Oil Co., 95 percent owner of Aurora Gas, is not an owner in Aurora Exploration and is rumored to be unhappy with the price and terms Apache is offering for Aurora Gas, and is subsequently holding up the sale.
Aurora Exploration is 100 percent owned by Aurora Power, predecessor of the original Aurora company formed in 1994 to market natural gas in Cook Inlet, buying it directly from producers and selling directly to large customers.
Pfoff owns 85 percent of Aurora Power, and says there is a deal in progress with his ex-partner Steve Severy that would give the Boelens family — David and his father Floyd — 15 percent of the company.
“We’re going forward with E&P in the Cook Inlet basin however the other deal (the sale of Aurora Gas) shakes out,” he said. “Life and business go on. … We’re still excited about the upside in Alaska.”
Chasing prospect since 1994
Aurora Exploration was high bidder in the June 22 lease sale on the North Alexander and Wolverine gas prospects, both onshore and on the west side of the body of water called Cook Inlet, which shares its name with the onshore/offshore geologic basin.
“I have been chasing the North Alexander prospect since 1994, since I left Marathon Oil,” Pfoff said.
The other prospect, Wolverine, “is not as large a prospect but it is a lot closer to infrastructure, just off the Chevron-operated Lewis River unit,” he said.
“We are looking at the best way to get them drilled … taking a fresh look at everything. We’ll maybe do 2-D, 3-D seismic,” Pfoff said, emphasizing his serious intent to work the acreage. “We have a proven track record of getting holes drilled in Cook Inlet.”
The Wolverine prospect, which consists of one lease, had previously been held by Dan Donkel, Pfoff said.
“Right before the lease expired he unitized it … held onto it for another year or two (with no drilling), but then dissolved the unit and released the acreage back to the state, but not in time for last year’s lease sa;e, so I had to wait another year.”
Houston-based Escopeta Oil and Gas was the previous leaseholder at North Alexander. Escopeta, too, formed a unit but never drilled.
“Danny Davis did what he needed to do, and that was to focus on what he most needed to drill — his offshore Kitchen prospects. You have to admire his tenacity.”
Aurora after conventional gas
Pfoff said he wished both Escopeta and Australia-based Buccaneer Energy success in getting jack-up drilling rigs to Cook Inlet.
“I hope we do land up with two jack-ups in the inlet. I want to see lots of development; obviously Apache (which won the most leases in the recent Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale) made a big run at this basin.
“The USGS says there’s a lot of technically recoverable oil and gas reserves in Cook Inlet basin. It’s time to put that to a test,” Pfoff said.
But while he thinks there are some “good-sized” untapped conventional oil and gas fields in the region, Pfoff thinks there is also a great future in the Southcentral Alaska basin for unconventional resources, such as shale oil, which Great Bear Petroleum is looking to exploit on the North Slope.
“Our intention is to go after conventional gas with the two prospects we just picked up. That’s our gig. But I think the whole basin is wide open as to what might be deeper. …
“There are exciting times ahead.”
Editor’s note: Another Aurora company, Aurora Well Service, or AWS, is owned “pretty much … two-thirds by the Boelens family and one-third by Aurora Power,” Pfoff said.
—Kay Cashman
