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Hilcorp buys Spartan 151, keeping jack-up in Cook Inlet, available
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Hilcorp Alaska has acquired the Spartan 151 jack-up rig.
The company said in a June 3 email that the sale closed May 31, and it now owns the rig through a wholly owned subsidiary.
'We are proud to make this investment and ensure the only jack-up rig in Alaska remains drilling in the Cook Inlet,' said Luke Saugier, Hilcorp Alaska senior vice president. 'This nearly $40 million investment demonstrates Hilcorp Alaska's continued long-term commitment to produce Cook Inlet natural gas for Alsakan homes and businesses.'
The company said the purchase ensures that Hilcorp Alaska has access while enabling it to work with other Cook Inlet gas producers to ensure their access. Spartan 151 is a 150 H class independent leg, cantilevered jack-up which can drill to 25,000 feet and operate in water depths up to 151 feet. The rig had been owned by Enterprise Offshore Drilling.
Hilcorp said the purchase ensures it access to critical equipment necessary to continue its Cook Inlet investment program, estimated at nearly a billion dollars over the next five years.
Owning not usual for Hilcorp Hilcorp Alaska said it prefers not to own and operate drilling rigs, but oilfield services and equipment have become very limited in Cook Inlet. 'Acquiring the Spartan 151 helps ensure our ability to access critical equipment necessary to continue our near-billion-dollar Cook Inlet investment program over the next five years,' the company said.
Hilcorp said it plans to spend several hundred million dollars in Cook Inlet in 2024, operate four rigs and drill nearly 20 wells 'not only to sustain our current operations, but also to meet future needs, despite the 30% year-over-year production decline that's common in Cook Inlet wells.'
In inlet since 2012 The Spartan 151 was brought to Cook Inlet in 2012 by Escopeta Oil Co., later renamed Furie Operating, to drill at Kitchen Lights. It was the first jack-up in Cook Inlet in nearly two decades. The inlet was briefly home to two other jack-ups in that decade, Endeavour and Randolf Yost, but in recent years Spartan 151 has been the only jack-up available for offshore work in the inlet.
A bill in the Legislature this year to support bringing in another jack-up failed to move, although supporters argued that a second jack-up would help produce the natural gas needed in Cook Inlet.
--KRISTEN NELSON
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