Kay Cashman

The upcoming winter oil exploration drilling season on Alaska's North Slope is shaping up to be busier than last winter, but with fewer companies involved -- four versus six.

The former naval base at Adak on Adak Island in the Aleutian Chain will be operated as a logistics support terminal for the oil and gas industry offshore Alaska's North Slope, based on an agreement signed June 19 by Offshore Systems Inc., Aleut Enterprise and Aleut Real Estate.

Of the eight operators who hoped to drill as many as 34 exploration wells on Alaska's North Slope in 2012, two postponed drilling because they couldn't get rigs, one will start drilling in mid-May because it can drill year-round, four have completed their wells, and one is just about to finish drilling as the winter exploration season in northern Alaska winds down to a close.

Fulfilling a promise to the village of Nuiqsut before the start of its North Slope exploration program, Repsol E&P USA has suspended drilling operations while it investigates the cause of a blowout at one of its four North Slope exploration pads.

Grab a drilling rig while you can -- or order one built -- because the second new player to target oil in North Slope source rocks plans to drill as many as six evaluation wells next winter, two on each of its three lease blocks.

NordAq Energy has not officially announced a natural gas discovery at its Shadura prospect in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, but amid rumors of a huge find the independent recently said it expects to produce "up to 50 million cubic feet" of natural gas a day for Southcentral Alaska starting in February 2013 and lasting about 30 years.

Skeptics beware. If you thought Great Bear Petroleum's plan to drill 200 wells a year in its North Slope shale acreage was unrealistic, the world's second largest oil field service company thinks you're wrong.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has levied a $15 million fine against Escopeta Oil Co. for violating the federal Jones Act by transporting the Spartan 151 jack-up rig from Texas using a foreign-flagged vessel. The rig eventually arrived in Cook Inlet.

As Southcentral Alaska prepares for an increase in oil and gas exploration and development in the Cook Inlet basin, operators on the North Slope and nearshore Beaufort Sea are preparing for what promises to be one of the busiest exploration seasons since 1969, when 33 exploration wells were drilled after the discovery of the Prudhoe Bay oil field.

The delayed and controversial Spartan 151 jack-up rig, under contract to Escopeta Oil to drill offshore in Cook Inlet, left the Vancouver area on July 20, according to Escopeta, an independent based in Houston.

Escopeta Oil will have work done on a jack-up drilling rig at a Canadian port. But when -- and if -- the rig will turn around and resume its voyage to Cook Inlet is not certain.

Robert Duvall won't be on board the ship that offloads Escopeta Oil's jack-up rig this week but he will be making a trip north once the company starts drilling for oil and natural gas in Alaska's Cook Inlet.

For the first time in more than a decade, a jack-up rig is headed to Cook Inlet to drill for oil and gas. The Spartan 151 drilling rig, under contract to Escopeta Oil, is expected to arrive in Kachemak Bay the week of May 29.

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority could soon own a jack-up drilling rig.

Can Alaska join the shale oil boom sweeping the Lower 48, making states like North Dakota contenders for the largest producer in the country? One company, Great Bear Petroleum, bet $8 million in Alaska's latest North Slope lease sale that it can.