New Stars on the Slope: Alkaid and Talitha twinkle in Pantheon's eye.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa

Ursa Major's third-brightest star, at the tip of the Great Bear's tail (or Big Dipper's handle), is named Alkaid. The constellation contains two dimmer stars named Talitha Borealis and Talitha Australis that form the bear's front paw. Alkaid and Talitha are also the names of two North Slope units held by Great Bear Pantheon, an oil exploration subsidiary of Pantheon Resources.

While Pantheon Resources may be minor compared to some of the Slope's larger players, its current drilling program is yielding some major numbers. In its most recent shareholder webinar held in March 2023, the company announced that oilfield services company SLB (previously Schlumberger) estimates that there are roughly 17.8 billion barrels of oil in place across the company's reservoirs, including the recently drilled Theta West project area.

Shortly ahead of the webinar, Pantheon also shared a Wood MacKenzie report that described the company's Theta West-1 well as the "fourth-biggest discovery well globally in 2022." Though the area needs additional drilling and testing before potentially being considered commercial, this discovery put a positive spin on what has been a tumultuous year, which also included testing at the Talitha-A discovery well and a long-term production test at the Alkaid-2 well.

The Alkaid project's location, right along the Dalton Highway and Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), allowed the well to be drilled from a gravel pad last summer, followed by the long-term production test this winter.

"Probably our biggest challenge this past year has been managing people's expectations about what we're seeing and doing at our Alkaid-2 well," says Technical Director Bob Rosenthal of Pantheon's dip in share prices because of what the company calls miscommunication and misconceptions. "But we've seen a lot of fluids and a lot of volume at Alkaid-2, and we're extremely encouraged about the future."

More Than a Decade on the North Slope

Pantheon Resources is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company incorporated in the United Kingdom. Following a 2019 merger with Great Bear Petroleum. Pantheon now holds a 100 percent working interest in a portfolio of high-impact oil projects focused on the Alaska North Slope, spanning more than 150,000 acres.

Through Alaska operating company Great Bear Pantheon, Pantheon has been on the North Slope in some form since 2010. The company originally drilled Alkaid-1 in 2015 but had to cut its winter season...