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Savant drops Kupcake No. 1 lease acreage Reservoir deemed ‘water-wet,’ True North sells CI leases at two prospects, Renaissance completes transfer, BRPC partners shuffle Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
Savant Alaska has allowed four Beaufort Sea leases to terminate this year by choosing not to pay rental rates, according to a recently released state lease report.
The leases — ADL 390832, ADL 390833, ADL 390835 and ADL 390837 — are in the state waters of Foggy Island Bay, east of the Prudhoe Bay unit and west of the Badami unit. Savant used those leases to drill the Kupcake No. 1 exploration well in early 2008.
While Savant executed one of the quickest exploration efforts on the North Slope by an independent (at an offshore prospect no less), the well did not yield desirable results.
After drilling was completed, Bordeaux Energy Inc., a Canadian partner on the project, said Kupcake No. 1 reached the Kemik formation, but the target interval “was thinner than anticipated” and the porous Cretaceous sandstone encountered by the well was deemed to be “water wet,” meaning the rocks were more likely to absorb water than oil.
Savant owns a 65 percent stake in all four of the relinquished leases, while Bordeaux owns 30 percent and Texas-based independent BTA Oil Producers owns 5 percent.
Savant used that experience in the region, though, to partner with BP over the past two winters on an effort to bring the Badami field back online and into regular production.
Despite the Kupcake relinquishments, Savant appears to be retaining several leases adjacent to the western border of the Badami unit. Those leases have the same owners as the relinquished leases, except one — ADL 391380 — that Savant owns outright.
True North leaving Cook Inlet The Houston-based independent True North Energy Corp., a former partner on Kupcake in various capacities, sold eight of its Cook Inlet leases to Samuel Cade in March 2010.
Of those, four leases sit north and south of the Beluga River unit, while the remaining leases are at the Harriet Bay prospect on the west side of Cook Inlet, south of Drift River and west of Kalgin Island. True North is retaining two Cook Inlet leases in that area.
True North picked up the acreage in 2006. Based on seismic acquisitions, the company estimated recoverable reserves between 180 million and 700 million barrels of oil at Harriet Bay. In February 2008, True North CEO John Folnovic told Petroleum News that the company was planning a summer permitting program and hoped to drill.
“Our focus has always been, in the near-term, in Cook Inlet,” Folnovic said.
That drilling program never materialized.
True North originally bought some of those lease from Cade, among others.
Renaissance and BRPC shuffle Renaissance Alaska transferred its working interest in 12 Cook Inlet leases to Stellar Oil and Gas, an independent owned by several executives of Texas-based Renaissance.
The transfer is mainly for bookkeeping purposes, as Stellar recently announced a sale of the leases to Buccaneer Energy Ltd., an independent producer out of Sydney, Australia.
On the North Slope and in the Beaufort Sea, the partners in the Brooks Range Petroleum Group shuffled working and royalty interests among themselves on 76 leases. The move comes after one partner, TG World Energy, gave up “certain working interests in the Beechey Point Unit leases in Alaska” after what it deemed to be an “unsuccessful” well.
Note: A copyrighted oil and gas lease map from Mapmakers Alaska (www.mapmakersalaska.com/) was used as a research tool in preparing this story.
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