The Tyonek platform, right, in Cook Inlet, is currently home to the region’s only offshore drilling rig, which is to the left of the platform. Both assets are owned by Hilcorp, the inlet’s dominant producer; another oil and gas company, HEX, may rent the rig to drill a well before the end of the year — but only if the state grants it concessions, says HEX President John Hendrix. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal)
With time running out before a shortfall in local natural gas production forces Alaska’s urban utilities to import more expensive supplies from outside the state, two small companies say they have reserves that could help fill the gap.
But executives from the two privately owned oil companies, BlueCrest Energy and HEX, say they won’t be able to drill wells to access the gas on their state-leased lands without government help.
While Bluecrest’s plans are longer-term, Anchorage-based HEX is scrambling to prepare for a drilling effort from its Julius R platform, in Cook Inlet offshore of the Kenai Peninsula, before winter sets in.