Today’s Key Takeaways: Better than expected result for North Slope exploration. Alaska trade trip to Japan touting LNG. U.S. flooded with record copper shipments.
OIL:
APA Alaska partner discovers hydrocarbons on North Slope
Alex Procyk, Pipeline Oil & Gas Journal, March 18, 2025
Wireline logging is complete and additional data collection is under way, including core acquisition and flow testing to confirm permeability.
- Sockeye-2 encountered a Paleocene-aged reservoir on state land.
- Porosity and permeability are both better than expected.
APA Corp.’s operating partner in Alaska discovered hydrocarbons in the Sockeye-2 exploration well on the North Slope.
The Alaskan exploration partnership (APA 50%; Lagniappe Alaska, an Armstrong Oil & Gas subsidiary, 25%, operator; Santos Ltd., 25%) owns 325,000 gross acres on the North Slope of Alaska.
Sockeye-2 was drilled to a depth of about 10,500 ft and encountered a high-quality reservoir with about 25 ft of net oil pay in one blocky, Paleocene-aged sand with an average porosity of 20%. The porosity and permeability are both better than expected compared with recent regional field analogues in the Brookian play.
Wireline logging is complete and additional data collection is under way, including core acquisition and flow testing to confirm permeability.
“While net pay is not eye-popping, 20% porosity is a strong indicator that suggests potentially cost-effective reservoir drainage across a larger area that will need to be delineated,” said TD Cowen analysts in a note Mar. 17 following the announcement.
Additional zones of potential pay were also encountered in the shallower Staines Tongue formation.
The Sockeye prospect is amplitude supported across 25,000-30,000 acres, and confirms the partners’ geologic and geophysical models, derisking numerous additional prospects in the area, APA Corp. said in a Mar. 17 release.
Sockeye-2 is the second successful exploratory well drilled on a 325,411-acre state land position. The first well, King Street-1, was a new field discovery with oil in two separate Brookian Zones.
As part of its 2025 capital program, APA Corp. previously guided Alaska exploration capex at about $100 million with the intention to drill one well at Sockeye-2 and pursue further success, TD Cowen analysts noted.
GAS:
Alaskan officials to seek investors in Asia as Trump touts LNG
Katya Golubkova, Yuka Obayashi, Tim Kelly, Reuters, March 1, 2025
- Alaska wants investors for proposed $44 billion LNG pipeline
- Japanese firms have yet to commit to Alaska LNG project
- Trump’s Japan ambassador says he will pursue LNG commitment
Alaska’s governor and state representatives will visit Japan and three other Asian countries starting this week to court investors for a natural gas project that President Donald Trump says could pump trillions of dollars into the U.S., although Japanese energy firms remain sceptical.
Officials from the state-run Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC) and development partner Glenfarne Group will visit allied Asian countries “to update industry leaders on Alaska LNG’s economic and strategic competitive advantages, and discuss opportunities for participation”, said AGDC spokesperson Tim Fitzpatrick.
Related: Trump Wants to Export More LNG to Asia via Alaska
MINING:
Tariff risk unleashes record copper shipments bound for US ports
Reuters, March 19, 2025
The US is about to be flooded with a massive wave of copper as a worldwide dash to front-run potential tariffs by US President Donald Trump comes to a head.
Between 100,000 and 150,000 metric tons of refined copper is expected to arrive in the US in the coming weeks, according to four people surveyed by Bloomberg with direct knowledge of some of the shipments. If the full volume arrives within the same month, it would surpass the all-time record of 136,951 tons set in January 2022.
Commodities traders including Trafigura Group, Glencore Plc and Gunvor Group are redirecting large volumes of metal earmarked for Asia to the US. The quantity is so big that traders are booking additional warehousing space in New Orleans and Baltimore to accommodate the shipments, some of the people said. The three firms declined to comment.
The surge of foreign copper into the US has widespread ramifications as it drains supplies in other markets including China, the top consuming nation. Copper prices in the US are at levels well above other overseas markets, giving American manufacturers a taste of the kind of cost inflation and supply-chain disruptions that may be triggered by a full-blown trade war.