Doyon, Ltd., the Interior Alaska Native regional corporation, is planning new seismic work this winter in the northern part of the Nenana Basin, an Interior Alaska basin about 60 miles west of Fairbanks that is considered gas prone but also has oil potential. About 120 miles of two-dimensional seismic is planned for this winter. Doyon is an Alaska Native development corporation with about 11 million acres of surface and subsurface land holdings in Interior Alaska. The Nenana Basin project is on state-owned lands held under an Exploration License, a form of state lease. The license area includes 483,000 acres of general state lands and an additional 9,500 acres of lands owned by the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, a state agency that leases its lands to support mental health programs.

Doyon and three partners drilled a well two years ago in the southern part of the basin with mixed results. No gas was found but there were indications that hydrocarbons were present in the region. Doyon’s partners in the Nenana Basin exploration have been Arctic Slope Regional Corp., another Native development corporation with holdings on the North Slope, and Usibelli Energy LLC, an affiliate of Usibelli Mines, which operates a coal mine near Healy, also in Interior Alaska. This winter’s program will involve the first seismic done in the northern part of the Nenana Basin, which is believed to hold the deepest part of the basin, with sedimentary rocks possibly as deep as 16,000 feet.

State geologists have said the basin exhibits somewhat similar geology to the prolific Cook Inlet basin in southern Alaska and is generally considered prospective for natural gas. A geologic assessment of the basin indicated the possibility of 3 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable thermogenic gas in the basin, with the possibility of additional biogenic gas. There were two earlier exploration wells drilled, by Unocal in 1962 and ARCO in 1984, but the wells were drilled at the far southern, and shallowest, part of the basin and were unsuccessfu.

If gas is found in the basin it could be shipped through pipelines planned to be routed near the area. A 48-inch pipeline to Canada from the North Slope proposed by TransCanada Corp. would pass northeast of the basin, while an alternative 24-inch pipeline from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska planned by a state development corporation would pass right through the basin.

A key advantage of Nenana Basin gas for the state’s 24-inch pipeline is that a 500 million cubic-feet-per-day limit that applies to the state project because of its contract with TransCanada Corp. does not apply to gas found in Interior Alaska. Thus, the 24-inch pipeline could move 500 million cubic feet per day from the slope and any gas from the Nenana Basin could be above that. The 500 million cubic feet per day limit is a source of frustration because it limits the development of industrial customers who would need more than the gas that could be delivered under the limit. Of course, if the large TransCanada project does not proceed the 500 million cubic feet per day limit will end at some point.