29-06-09 Two new exploration wells, searching for gas, are planned this winter on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge on the Kenai Peninsula in south-central Alaska, companies involved said. Marathon Oil will drill its Sunrise prospect on privately owned lands within the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
The well is about six miles east of the Swanson River oilfield, a long-producing field that is also within the refuge.

Small independent company Nordaq Energy also plans a well in the same area, also on private lands, an Alaska Journal of Commerce report said.
Marathon plans to begin drilling in December using a company-owned rig, company executive Carri Lockhart said. Nordaq is still working to finalise federal permits needed for its well as well as choose a drill rig, company executive Bob Warthen said.

Chevron is evaluating a third potential gas prospect at Birch Hill, in an area north of Swanson River. The company will evaluate the condition of an existing well drilled by Unocal in the 1960s at Birch Hill but not produced, company spokeswomen Roxanne Sinz said.
Prospects being tested by Marathon and Nordaq Energy are on subsurface leases with Cook Inlet Region, an Anchorage-based Alaska Native regional corporation that owns surface and subsurface lands in South-central Alaska, including prospective tracts within the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

Chevron's Birch Hills leases are on subsurface lands owned by Tyonek Native Corporation, an Alaska Native village company, but it is also within the Kenai refuge. Although the small Swanson River oilfield has produced from within the refuge for 50 years recent exploration in the area had been stymied by high costs and complex federal permit requirements.
State geologists believe the wildlife refuge may hold some of the most prospective acreage for gas discoveries in southern Alaska that have not yet been explored, said Kevin Banks, director of the Division of Oil and Gas. There are also possible gas and oil prospects in deeper offshore tractsof Cook Inlet, but testing those will require a jack-up rig or drill ship to be brought to the Inlet, Banks said.