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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (181486)	10/4/2006 11:28:35 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793914

I'm afraid I took Plotz's piece a bit personally. I knew when I posted it that it would stir things up. :>)

To: ManyMoose who wrote (181486)	10/4/2006 6:08:18 PM
From: Snowshoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793914

The Plotz piece about Lewis and Clark was a typical hatchet job, in which the writer gets cranked up on some particular theme and feels entitled to ignore facts under the banner of poetic license. Here's another example of the genre... >>Democrats have been largely responsible for this because they have blocked all efforts to drill in Alaska and certain offshore areas estimated to contain 10 billion to 20 billion barrels of crude.<< Message 22864334 Here's the actual truth... Winter to bustle on (Alaska North) Slope - EXPLORATION: Rigs may drill up to 19 wells in the coming season. adn.com By KAY CASHMAN and ALAN BAILEY Petroleum News Published: August 23, 2006 Last Modified: August 23, 2006 at 05:49 AM The upcoming North Slope winter exploration season could be one of the busiest in at least a decade, with 10 to 19 wells possible. All but one of the drilling rigs that can be used for exploration have been spoken for. And a shortage could be developing of support equipment such as camps and rolligons. Operators planning exploration drilling this year include: • Conoco Phillips in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. • FEX, a subsidiary of Calgary-based Talisman Energy, in NPR-A. • Eni Petroleum at Rock Flour at the southeast corner of the big Kuparuk River oil field. • Anadarko Petroleum at Jacob's Ladder and maybe in the gas-prone Brooks Range foothills. • AVCG and Brooks Range Petroleum near Gwydyr Bay. BP also plans to drill the gas hydrate test well it was hoping to drill last year. The well will be drilled into the Mount Elbert prospect at the Milne Point oil field, BP said. A Kerr-McGee spokesman said early this month that the company was moving ahead with exploration plans but that it was too early to talk about specifics. Sister companies Winstar Exploration and Ultrastar Exploration continue to edge toward drilling at the Dewline Deep prospect west of the Point McIntyre oil field, but drilling this winter is not a certainty. Newcomer Savant Resources is also looking at North Slope exploration, but nothing has been confirmed. Many of the possible exploration wells have not been sanctioned by the companies. That comes last in the planning process. The Slope is getting two new drilling rigs this year. Conoco is having Kuukpik Drilling rig 5 refurbished for use in NPR-A. Akita-Doyon's Arctic Wolf rig is "coming out of the construction yard at Nisku, Alberta," according to Akita, and will drill two to three wells in Alberta, then be trucked to Alaska by late November. FEX said it will then be shipped to Cape Simpson for NPR-A drilling. Eni plans three exploration wells at Rock Flour, its first drilling on the Slope. Anadarko's Alaska spokesman Mark Hanley said the company was almost certainly going to drill a well at its eastern North Slope Jacob's Ladder prospect but two wells in the gas-prone Brooks Range foothills were less likely to be drilled because equipment wasn't available. Anadarko has held pre-application meetings with the state Division of Oil and Gas. A division official said the company is interested in eventually drilling four prospects south of Pump Station 2 and west of the Dalton Highway. AVCG/Brooks Range hopes to drill two wells in the Gwydyr Bay area north of Prudhoe Bay, said Ken Thompson, president of Brooks Range, the operating arm of AVCG. The company has identified two prospects in the area, Thompson said. Plans should be firmed up by the end of August, he said. FEX is moving ahead with plans to drill three to four wildcat exploration wells in NPR-A, said Barry Nelson, spokesman for parent company Talisman. Nelson declined to say which prospects the company would target, but industry sources say FEX is hoping to drill at least one well in its Caribou prospect. The company has three rolligons under contract for its exploration. Jim Weeks, managing member of Winstar and Ultrastar, said Ultrastar is getting closer to drilling its Dewline Deep prospect west of Point McIntyre. Ultrastar needs an access agreement to use the processing facilities at the BP-run Lisburne oil field and it needs a drilling rig. Negotiations over facility access have proved very slow, although Weeks emphasized that everyone was cooperating and that an agreement was close. "It's like molasses in January in Fairbanks," Weeks said. Weeks said he has asked BP about using two of its drilling rigs at the part of Prudhoe Bay that is shut down because of pipeline corrosion. Last year Ultrastar dropped its leases near BP's Badami and Liberty fields, the easternmost North Slope oil fields. Weeks said that the potential development costs for any oil find in those leases looked too high to be feasible for the small, Alaska-based independent.