Vision Resources, a Gardes Holdings company, has entered into a five-year natural gas sales and purchase agreement with Alaska Pipeline Co. that will result in APC’s utility affiliate Enstar Natural Gas Co. distributing gas from Vision’s North Fork unit. The field is north of Homer on Alaska’s southern Kenai Peninsula.
The agreement was filed in February by Enstar with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, which oversees supply contracts for regulated utilities. Enstar provides natural gas distribution service to the municipality of Anchorage and portions of the Matanuska-Susitna and Kenai Peninsula boroughs.
Gas deliveries are expected to begin May 11, when the current contract with seller Cook Inlet Energy expires. The starting price will be $7.30 per thousand cubic feet. After the first year the gas price will increase annually by 7 cents per mcf through the end of the contract for a final price of $7.60 per mcf.
North Fork produced an average of 3,126 mcf of natural gas per day in December.
Under the leadership of Bob Gardes of Lafayette, Louisiana, Gardes Holdings acquired the North Fork gas field in September from Cook Inlet Energy, a Glacier Oil and Gas Co. It was Gardes Holding’s first acquisition in Alaska. Bob Gardes views the Cook Inlet basin as one of the four top gas regions in the world and is interested in picking up more stranded gas properties in Cook Inlet and Interior Alaska.
That said, “for the next year or more” Vision is “focused on North Fork,” Mark Landt, company vice president of land and upstream business development, told Petroleum News in a March 10 interview. “We see some definite opportunities to pursue there,” he said, noting the company has a “full G&G staff” working on North Fork.
“Now that we have our plan of development for the unit approved with the Division of Oil and Gas (see story in this issue) and have purchased 3D seismic … we are going to be working the 3D data and generating our own ideas going forward.”
Landt said Vision sees “additional gas to be recovered” at North Fork, mentioning the possibility of “additional sands” in the field and more workovers.
The 2,601.84 acre, five-lease North Fork unit, produces from a single participating area covering 800 acres.
Although North Fork was first unitized in 1965 by Standard Oil Company of California, Armstrong Cook Inlet, a Bill Armstrong company, first brought the field online in 2011. The plan of development that was approved Feb. 25 is the 57th POD for the unit.
Leaseholder Vision, Landt’s history
Gardes Holdings is awaiting the lease assignments it applied for in November from Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas. Once it has those in hand, Landt said, the firm will assign the leasehold to Vision Resources, one of two companies Gardes formed in Alaska. The other is Vision Operating, which will operate the North Fork unit.
Landt, who is well known in Alaska’s oil patch, began his career with ARCO where he spent 25 years in various land, negotiations, acquisition, business development, marketing and senior management positions in their Denver, Lafayette, Dallas, Houston, Anchorage, Bakersfield and Plano (International) offices.
He has more than 25 years of direct experience in Alaska and was based in Anchorage for five years.
After leaving the company, Landt co-founded Prodigy Alaska, Renaissance Alaska, Buccaneer Alaska and Stellar Oil & Gas, all focused on E&P in Alaska.
Hennigan’s Alaska experience
Landt has previously worked with Stephen Hennigan, vice president of engineering for Gardes Holdings.
Per the company’s website Hennigan is the lead on engineering, drilling and completions in Alaska.
He has a “40-year track record of success in the oil and gas industry throughout the Lower 48 and, importantly, the Cook Inlet of Alaska. Steve has been directly engaged in successful drilling and development of North Fork unit and other Cook Inlet fields since 2007, for previous operators and owners,” having “institutional knowledge of North Fork,” per gardesholdings.com.
Bob Gardes on Alaska
The same website touted Bob Gardes as having “over 40 years engineering, drilling, completions in the oil and gas industry” and being “a pioneer in lateral drilling and completions and coal-bed methane development world-wide with more than 3,000 wells drilled under his management and supervision.”
His companies own “multiple drilling patented methodologies related to lateral drilling and completions,” his website bio said.
Gardes views natural gas as the “fuel of the future “
“We hope to be gold star presence among oil and gas companies in Cook Inlet,” he told Petroleum News in early November.
“For the last 20 years we’ve been coming to Alaska,” he said.
“There is a lot of bypassed gas here because the deposits weren’t big enough” for the companies to bother with them, Gardes said. There also wasn’t a market for it in Alaska. But eventually gas became the fuel of choice for heating buildings in much of Southcentral Alaska, while gas-fired generation became the favored source of electrical power.
“We think the future in the U.S. is gas. It burns 98% cleaner than oil and coal. It is a transformational resource,” he said.
