In an April 21 interview with John Hendrix, he confirmed that Furie Operating has been drilling a new natural gas well in the Kitchen Lights unit from the Julius R Platform with Hilcorp Jack-Up Rig Co.'s Spartan 151 which Furie took delivery of on April 10.
Long-time Alaskan Hendrix is the owner of HEX Cook Inlet, the owner of Furie. HEX Cl is the only 100% Alaskan-owned oil and gas company currently operating in the state.
"We've been drilling a surface hole at A-6 today, running in the casing 13 and 18 inches, going to run it down to 2,906 feet and cement it and then pull out and move over to A-5 in a couple of days and drill that surface and continue to total depth of about 9,300 feet and then move back to A-6 and drill it down to total depth," Hendrix said.
"We committed last year that if we received royalty relief we would drill," he said. The company's royalty relief application was approved by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources in early February, Hendrix said, and Furie has committed to a drilling program which will cost some $40 million in 2025.
"We are an Alaskan owned company, and we are executing on our commitments. Drilling will allow new gas to be online for the Railbelt in advance of the 2025-2026 winter. Together with Hilcorp, we are demonstrating that Alaskans working together can develop more critically needed energy from the Cook Inlet basin," Hendrix said.
Doubled well slots
Kitchen Lights produces from the Julius R platform and production facility has been limited because the platform had only six surface well slots. Work the company recently completed doubled the number of surface well slots to 12, Hendrix told Petroleum News in March.
He said at that time that the possibility of operating more wells from the platform gives Furie greater confidence in signing long-term gas supply contracts, as it provides the potential for backup wells in support of its gas production.
How much gas?
When asked how much natural gas Furie expects to get from the two new wells, Hendrix said, "we're hoping 4 million standard cubic feet per day per well, which is equivalent to approximately 700 barrels of oil equivalent."
Currently Kitchen Lights is producing in the neighborhood of 14 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
"Our objective is to have the two wells drilled no later than July 1 and have them on production by July 15," Hendrix said.
The Spartan 151 is the only jack-up in Cook Inlet.
Furie said in March that it is working with local companies on the current drilling program, including Fairweather LLC, Cook Inlet Tug & Marge, Maritime Helicopters, CISPRI, Pollard Wireline Services, Petrotechnical Resources of Alaska and Weaver Brothers.
