Interior and Northwest Alaska exploration: searching for oil and gas in underexplored basins.

• Author: Bradner, Mike
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Oil & Gas

Alaska Native corporations are leading the exploration for oil and gas in the large, underexplored sedimentary basins in Interior and Northwest Alaska. Sedimentary basins are acculations of sedimentary-type rocks, the kind of rock where oil and gas can accumulate.

While the Cook Inlet and North Slope sedimentary basins have seen major oil and gas discoveries, the potential of other basins in Alaska has hardly been scratched. Now three Alaska-based Native corporations, Doyon, Ltd. in the Interior, Ahtna, Inc. in the Copper River region, and NANA Regional Corporation, are actively exploring or promoting exploration.

The motivation has been mostly focused on developing local supplies of energy, like gas, for communities now largely dependent on imported diesel, along with a desire to develop lands owned by the corporations.

However, Doyon and Ahtna are initially focused on exploring state-owned lands, although both own lands near their initial drilling locations. For Ahtna and NANA, which is seeking to explore the Kotzebue Basin where it owns lands, the focus is on natural gas.

For Doyon it is both oil and gas. For many years the large Nenana and Yukon Flats basis where Doyon is active were thought to be more prone to gas, but Doyon's recent drilling has shown the presence of an oil system in the Nenana Basin. Doyon has drilled two wells and is planning another possibly in 2016.

Copper River Basin

Meanwhile, Ahtna is making its second try at finding natural gas in the Copper River Basin near Glennallen. The corporation, which is based in Glennallen, has signed an exploration agreement with two independent oil and gas companies to explore a gas prospect about twenty miles west of the community.

Rutter & Wilbanks, of Midland, Texas, and Australia-based Santa Petroleum will join with Ahtna to explore a large structure identified on state-owned lands, according to Joe Bovee, Ahtna's vice president for lands and resources.

Ahtna drilled previously in the area with Rutter & Wilbanks in 2007 and 2009, although the well was unsuccessful.

Ahtna has done a "reprocessing" of about ninety miles of seismic done previously, some on the state lands and some on nearby lands owned by Ahtna. The presence of gas in the formation has been demonstrated with the seismic but more seismic will be needed as well as a test well, Bovee says.

Gas was discovered previously in two other exploration wells drilled nearby, including the one drilled by Ahtna and Rutter & Wilbanks, one of the partners in the current venture. An early well was drilled by Pan American Petroleum in the 1960s. Gas was found, but Pan American was looking for oil.

Ahtna is the operator of the new joint-venture, for now, but that could change after the completion of new seismic work, Bovee says. The group hopes to do more seismic later this year and to...