Buccaneer Resources filed for Chapter 11 in Texas last Saturday, but hopes to stay in business.
Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Joe Balash explained.
Balash: “You can go for Chapter 11 which is what Buccaneer has done, where you in essence attempt to get relief from creditors so that they can’t foreclose on you or call in leins or what have you, and that gives the owners of the company, the management of the company the ability to reorganize the debt or debts that may be out there in an attempt to salvage whatever value there may be in the assets the company holds, and so that’s what’s happened here in this case.”
We asked Balash if this bankruptcy has to do with the legal issues with the well by WalMart earlier this year.
Balash: “What we have here is a case of a company that came to Alaska as an early mover and took advantage of the very attractive credits and incentives that are available in Cook Inlet in particular and in essence they got themselves overextended they bit off more than they could chew, when they ran into problems with their jack up rig not being ready to drill when it came over from Singapore, that caused a number of problems for them and the timing of their exploration didn’t sync up with some of the bills they had due, they just got ahead of themselves.”
Balash said it is still too early to say whether or not Buccaneer will remain in business.
Balash: “They’ve got some people there with some really good ideas about how to find additional resources here in Alaska and in the Cook Inlet basin and we need that enthusiasm,unfortunately they didn’t have enough capital to connect all the dots but there’s still some pretty good institutional and commercial knowledge there that doesn’t disappear.”