A New Day for Chevron in Alaska
Stephen Wright, Chevron Alaska Asset Development Manager, discusses Cook Inlet prospects with Kenai Alliance members.
Members of the Kenai Chapter of the Support Industry Alliance filled the meeting room at the Paradisos restaurant in Kenai to hear Chevron’s Alaska Asset Development Manager Stephen Wright present Chevron’s vision for their corporate investment in Alaska. “This was one of our best turn outs in recent months and I think the people here today were happy with what they heard and excited about Chevron’s future investments in the Cook Inlet,” said Dan Grove, chairman of the Kenai Chapter Alliance.
Wright reviewed Chevron’s history in Alaska which included a share in the original discovery of oil in Alaska at the Swanson River field on the Kenai Peninsula and said, “We believe that a lot of the opportunities for new production in the U.S. will come out of mature basins such as the Cook Inlet. There is an old saying that the best place to look for oil is in an oil field, and we believe that using new technologies to unlock additional opportunities in these mature assets such as the large fields we have around the Cook Inlet ought to be a part of meeting our future energy needs. So we will be focused on executing redevelopment of opportunities in mature fields which should bode well for the overall production profiles of the Inlet for many years to come.”
Wright added that the new technology would require a high level of up front investment to accomplish the redevelopment. “A key role that the contracting industry will have here is supporting our Chevron operations. We can’t do it alone and we are committed to being a partner with the industry workforce here in the Cook Inlet and will rely on them to stretch our limited resources as far as we can,” said Wright. However, Wright did express concerns about the aging of the energy industry workforce in Alaska, “The new workforce coming in to fill jobs of those retiring isn’t at a rate to meet the projected demand over the next five to twenty years. So Chevron is stepping up to get the message out that there are a tremendous amount of opportunities in the oil and gas industry for craft workers and new professionals such as engineers who are interested in a long term stable career.”
According to Wright Chevron has committed to a re-development capital budget of $200 million over the next three years which will commence this year. Chevron will also be performing Jurassic interval tests to explore potential oil reserves lying deep beneath existing fields. Wright also addressed the challenges of Chevron’s offshore platforms that are between 20 to 50 years old which include the drilling rigs that are mounted on the platforms, but added they are considering bringing in a flexible drilling rig that could move from platform to platform. Chevron also holds considerable assets on the North Slope which Wright mentioned they will also be pursuing and overall described Chevron’s new day in Alaska, since their merger with Unocal, as one with a bright future.