A new report by the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys shows there could be more oil in the Cook Inlet but the earthen features provide challenges to commercial production.
Petroleum Geologist Paul Decker with the Alaska Division of Oil & Gas…
Decker: “There’s probably a certain amount of undiscovered oil and gas in the basin. Now the thing is the easy targets, the targets of opportunity that are easily recognized using things like seismic surveys to focus the drilling activity in exploring for oil and gas, most of those easy targets have been identified decades ago now. And most of those have been tested.”
Much of the upper west and east sides of the Cook Inlet have been explored over the years but the new study suggests there could be potential further south.
The Iniskin Peninsula is located on the lower west side of the Cook Inlet, south of Mount Illiamna, where oil exploration began in the late 1800s.
While conducting energy related studies in 2014, scientists found oil seeping through fractures. Decker says that doesn’t mean there is oil readily available in that area.
Decker: “Most traditional oil reservoirs have the oil distributed throughout the rock in what’s called the pore space, think of it as the tiny little holes between the sand grains and so forth that make up the rock, that’s where the oil is typically resident is in the framework porosity. The rocks on the Iniskin Peninsula by and large don’t have that framework porosity.”
He says the older rock formations near that peninsula have lost their framework porosity because of cementation and alteration that happens with age.
Decker says there is a “ray of hope” with those new findings and the Division of Oil and Gas is optimistic that producers might find reserviors despite the challenges.