88 Energy secures bidder for Alaskan oil farmout

88 Energy and partner Burgundy Xploration have signed an exclusivity agreement with the as yet unnamed preferred bidder for the farmout of the conventional rights for their project known as “Project Icewine” in Alaska’s North Slope oil province.

Under the agreement, the bidder will pay the partners USD$500,000 to secure exclusivity over the rights to 31 August 2019.

This payment will be used to pay initial agreed costs relating to the 2020 drilling program.

Project Icewine’s conventional acreage has estimated gross mean prospective resources of 2.89 billion barrels of oil in multiple stacked prospects.

The project also benefits from easy access to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which runs right through the project area.

88 Energy currently has a 67% interest in Project Icewine.

Separately, the company is carrying out further work to increase its understanding of the unconventional HRZ shale play at Project Icewine.

The company previously said that analysis to date has revised the prospectivity fairway of the HRZ and indicated that Franklin Bluffs, where the Icewine unconventional wells were drilled, is marginally outside of the target zone.

However, the large leasehold of about 528,000 acres held by the Project Icewine JV means that over 50% of the acreage remains prospective for unconventional oil.