News Wrap: Alaska lucks out with ConocoPhillips; ExxonMobil’s Point Thomson production rising; HEX inks KLU deal; Alaska North Slope oil price disconnects Click here to go to the full PDF version of this issue, with any maps, photos or other artwork that appears in some of the articles. Petroleum News The April 19 issue of Petroleum News includes coverage of ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil. Furie, HEX, XCD Energy, Oil Search, Cook Inlet Energy, Glacier Oil and Gas and Hilcorp, all active in Alaska’s oil and gas industry. ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips’ second round of global spending cuts brought its Alaska budget down from $3.2 billion to about $3 billion; a much smaller hit than elsewhere. Another story, “Conoco applies for expansion at Kuparuk”, deals with the area covered by the Kuparuk oil pool. HEX LLC, Furie Also featured: The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, has backed Alaska startup HEX LLC with a loan to acquire the Kitchen Lights unit, a Cook Inlet natural gas field with oil potential that is currently operated by Furie, which is in bankruptcy. HEX President and CEO John Hendrix ran Apache’s operations in Alaska. North Slope crude disconnects One feature of the recent turmoil in the global oil market is the disconnection of the price of Alaska North Slope crude oil from the benchmark Brent crude price. The ANS oil price has dropped below the Brent price by about $10 to track more closely to the West Texas Intermediate benchmark - for years ANS oil has tracked close to the Brent index. XCD Energy Stayin’ alive: XCD, small company with NPR-A acreage hunkers down is another solid story. The Australian independent is the operator of Project Peregrine, a Nanushuk play within an area of 195,373 acres made up of 17 leases within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Oil Search Since Oil Search and ConocoPhillips Nanushuk acreage is close to a lot of the leases operated by explorer XCD, both company names and their drilling come up in the XCD article, as well as in the story “Open Alaska seismic 3D permits: Narwhal, Kuukpik; Staines delayed.” Hilcorp If you follow Hilcorp’s leasing in Alaska, the story “Hilcorp surrenders 5 Cook Inlet leases” will interest you. All the leases are on the southern Kenai Peninsula. Cook Inlet Energy, a Glacier Oil company “State approves 2 Cook Inlet Energy PODs” covers the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas’ approval of Cook Inlet Energy’s plan of development for Redoubt Shoal. But the division warned in its approval of the West McArthur River plan that it wants to see the company move ahead with the Sabre exploration project, which has been in the planning stage. Alaska Gasline Development Corp. “AGDC: goal private sponsor by year end” reports that the state entity which is the project sponsor for the Alaska LNG Project, got the final environmental impact statement for the project in March, and is scheduled to receive final approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in June. AGDC’s goal now is to move the project to a private sponsor as Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy made it clear after the final EIS was issued March 6 that the state did not intend to continue as project sponsor. -PETROLEUM NEWS PetroleumNews.com free introductory subscription or full subscription. Print this story | Email it to an associate.