HEX Cook Inlet LLC and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority inked the loan documents that will advance a $40 million drilling program in the Cook Inlet. The agreement supports a broader $50 million revolving line of credit for Furie Operating Alaska, LLC, operator of the Kitchen Lights Unit and a wholly owned subsidiary of HEX Cook Inlet.
The financing deal is a major step forward in addressing the regional demand for natural gas and will help Southcentral Alaska close its looming supply gap. The 2025 drilling program is expected to create up to 100 jobs during peak development phases and add five permanent positions post-completion. Furie is using the Spartan-151 jack-up rig, leased from Hilcorp Jack-Up Rig Company. In mid-April, Furie announced that the Spartan-151 rig had been moved from the rig tenders dock in Nikiski to the Julius R platform in the Kitchen Lights Unit. Drilling was expected to commence as early as mid-April to address potential shortages in Southcentral Alaska by the 2025/2026 winter
“This is more than a drilling project — it’s an investment in Alaska’s energy independence, economy, and workforce,” said John Hendrix, President and CEO of HEX Cook Inlet LLC. “Finalizing this agreement allows us to move ahead confidently, knowing we’re backed by a partner that shares our vision for long-term development and local impact.”
The collaboration in in line with AIDEA’s role in facilitating responsible resource development and long-term economic growth in the state.
“AIDEA is proud to partner with HEX on this impactful project,” said Randy Ruaro, AIDEA executive director. “This investment supports not only gas production but job creation, skill development, and long-term energy reliability for communities across Southcentral Alaska.”
Furie Operating Alaska has invested over $900 million in Cook Inlet to date and significantly increased its share of the region’s gas production — up 50% between December 2024 and February 2025. With the deployment of the Spartan 151 jack-up rig, Furie continues to assert its role as a key player in Alaska’s energy sector.
Furie is the only 100% Alaskan-owned oil and gas production company in the state.
Why do they need a $40 million loan from AIDEA? Why cant they fund this themselves?
Because no bank would touch that crap with a 10 foot pole, that is why. This is more of the AIDEA giveaway program that will ultimately not produce a return and cost Alaskans the PFD money being sunk into this loser. Hillcorp is a private, for profit company drilling and producing in Cook Inlet. Government has ZERO business interfering in private competition.
Anchorage Voter and Robert; It is a loan that is usual for projects like this. After years of ESG influence on lending institutions that discouraged investment in Oil and Gas projects, financial support must come from somewhere. It is being done for your benefit so you can stay warm and have your lights on. It is so we can keep the price of energy from climbing out of control. It helps provide confidence that Cook Inlet Gas production will increase to override the concerns that Cook Inlet Gas will run out soon. Hex repaid their previous AIDEA loan on time. This particular project is good for Alaska and for you.
Get your facts straight Robert, you’re out of line on this project financing. HEX will repay the loan with interest. It’s unfortunate there is so much AIDEA bashing they have been successful on lots of projects.
Funny, these days $40M seems like a small number. I guess after watching Biden’s handlers dole out billions with zero accountability, we’ve become desensitized. The difference here is that it’s a loan which has a fair chance of being paid back.
Not a chance, Hendrix will be back with his hat in his hand looking for more.
Well, I said fair chance. Here’s hoping.
Anchorage Voter: you apparently don’t understand that AIDEA was formed specifically to help with Alaska projects just like this. This is exactly what they do. And AIDEA will get more back than they loan to HEX. Although the projects are not of the same scale and one is mining and the other O&G, do some research into how much money AIDEA has made after it’s initial investment in Red Dog.
Name one project that AIDEA has participated in that made a dime. I will wait. And check before you start spouting their department BS. This is a sham organization that has bilked residents out of hundreds of billions of oil money that should have flowed through to Alaskans. Hendrix has been making sure he gets paid by Alaska since he got here.
Robert can only badmouth and bash. You’re wasting your breath on some of these people, all they see is negativity.
Anchorage Voter: Please read Randy Ruaro’s statement in Suzanne’s article. He explains it perfectly and doesn’t even mention that they will make money on the loan. That’s also what lenders do.
Also, most small companies take out loans to help finance projects. That’s also common. Do business much?
This is more total BS graft, collusion and stealing of our PFD to support unprofitable companies competing against private companies in Cook Inlet drilling. There is absolutely ZERO defense for this government involvement in Cook Inlet gas drilling and production.
Robert: Absolutely, the Delta Barley and Anchorage Fish Processing Facility investments by AIDEA were failures. But not everything they’ve done has failed, as is evidenced by the Red Dog ROI. AIDEA has made more than “a dime” on Red Dog. AIDEA has contributed over $468 million in dividends to the Unrestricted General Fund since 1997 due to the Red Dog Mine, a world-class zinc mine. Red Dog has also generated over $1.3 billion in payments to the State and NW Arctic Borough. Additionally, Red Dog operations have contributed ~$1.5 billion to the State and AIDEA.
NANA, the owner, and Teck, the operator (earlier Cominco), have all made an enormous amount of money on Red Dog, and employed many people and contractors, all facilitated by AIDEA’s investment in the road and port site.
You suggest that HEX is at odds with Hilcorp and competing against them. That’s not how O&G leasing works. And if Hilcorp were at odds with HEX, then why are they leasing their jack-up rig to HEX so HEX can drill more wells and produce more gas from HEX’s lease (not Hilcorp’s)? Hilcorp and HEX are the only two offshore players in Cook Inlet now and we need all the gas we can get from the Inlet. Yet, our genius legislators are proposing to penalize Hilcorp with the Hilcorp tax, which will disincentivize their future investments in the Inlet. HEX drilling and producing gas at Kitchen Lights is not a disincentive to future Hilcorp investment in the Inlet.
Finally, you stated: “Hendrix has been making sure he gets paid by Alaska since he got here.” Do you mean when a stork delivered him to his parents in Homer where John was raised? So maybe PFD checks just like you Robert Rubey. You made a couple of pejorative comments about John’s character, suggesting he’s a grifter. John Hendrix is a good, smart, and honest man who has had a long and successful career working for a number of O&G companies prior to starting HEX. Here’s hoping HEX finds more success producing gas at Kitchen Lights to help keep the lights on in Southcentral AK!
Great comments, DM!
We customers of Chugach Electric Association and Enstar Gas are counting on more clean-burning, reliable natural gas. It’s there to be located and produced.
And let’s walk away from the costly (taxpayer subsidized), unreliable, and ecologically harmful wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries. The peddlers of those technologies give snake-oil salespeople a good name, as well as a manufacturing windfall to the dreadful dictatorship of China.
I confused Hendrix with Richards with regard to the living off the state comment, However, I maintain that there is a private company in the Inlet drilling for and producing natural gas without the state financing them. If the company cannot operate without the support of the state coffers, my opinion is, it should find another business to operate. Since everyone wants to keep trotting out Red Dog as a huge success story, the company hired by AIDA, which it was called at the time, drafted a report that found state input was absolutely NOT required for Red Dog to be made into a productive, profitable mine. Nobody talked about building a railroad to transport the ore to Fairbanks, which would have been the much more effective expenditure of the money and would have allowed Red Dog to ship rear round so they wouldn’t have to handle the ore 4 times, nor build the largest roof in North America to store it. Ore transport would be much cheaper for the mine than it is today. The railroad would be long paid for as well. There would be spurs to Kotzebue and Nome, by now, which would greatly reduce the cost of living in Western Alaska. Additionally, the spur to Ambler could be built to prevent the building of that fiasco Ambler road project. Every time someone makes a statement about how great it is for the state to continue to make these loans and grants to private companies, I find it interesting that they fail to address the fact that the legislature has effectively stolen $14000 from every Alaskan since Walker started the stealing. And there has been negligible return on any of that largesse that vanished by way of the legislature. As for Chugach Electric, the leadership there paid $64 million for a battery plant, which will probably never pay for itself. The $121 million savings over 15 years is a pipe dream, with maintenance costs and attrition of system components. I still maintain that it was inappropriate for government to use someone else’s money to finance a company to produce the same thing as a private company is already producing. The one thing we do agree on is that the legislature attempting to pass legislation in an attempt to screw Hilcorp into paying more taxes is a bad deal for everyone.
The gas will get pumped into hilcorps pipelines, hilcorp will charge a fee for shipping. And you are correct on ownership of spartan drill rig.
Robert Rubey: You disparage and insult a good man in a public forum and your excuse, sans apology, is that you intended to insult someone else, who also just happens to be a good, smart, and honest man.
You lose all credibility after that. But wait, there’s more.
You challenged anyone to “name one project that AIDEA has participated in that made a dime.” When provided with the numbers proving that Red Dog, with AIDEA’s participation supporting the road and port site, has made an enormous amount of money for it’s owner, operators and AIDEA, you pivot to ‘ ~but I don’t like that project, ‘ and you would have designed and implemented it better if only you’d been in charge. Big, bad, red, white, and blue metal roof!
Red Dog is a mine, not a railroad project. And they are transporting concentrates, not ore. Instead of a 52-mile long road over mostly flat land owned by NANA, the mine owner, to tidewater where the cons can be barged directly to Teck’s (formerly Cominco’s) smelter at Trail, BC and other customers in Asia, you would have had them negotiate, permit, acquire ROW, and build a railroad the other direction across challenging topography and problematic land status through the interior of Alaska to move the cons to Fbx, and presumably then to Seward, to finally transport them by barge to Trail and Asia. Meanwhile, they were trying to get the concentrates shipped and sold as soon as possible to recoup the initial investment. I’m just guessing that acquiring the ROW, permitting, and building a railroad to Fbx would have taken a wee bit longer than what they did. There were some very smart, and practical, people in charge of those decisions and they made the correct ones.
It is a miracle that any natural resource projects have managed to be built in Alaska without your expert and focused guidance, Robert Rubey!
I do not concede, but I am withdrawing from this conversation. Life is too short to spend any more of it refuting someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about.
Correction: The road from the Red Dog Mine to the Port Site also traverses ~20 miles of federal land in Cape Krusenstern National Monument.