By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Apr. 13 -- An operating group has gauged a multizone oil discovery at the Atrush-1 exploratory well in northern Iraqi Kurdistan.
Three Middle and Upper Jurassic fractured carbonates flowed at a combined, equipment-limited rate of more than 6,393 b/d of 26.5° gravity oil. Well analyses show the intervals are capable of much higher rates when completed for production.
Ten drillstem tests were run across horizons in Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic to establish reservoir pressure gradients, fluid content and properties, and reservoir deliverability.
Drilled to a total depth of 3,400 m, the well encountered a 726-m potential gross oil column in Lower Cretaceous and Jurassic with 120 m of net matrix pay in Jurassic. Drilling shows and log results indicate as much as 140 m of further potential net pay in the Upper Butmah and Cretaceous formations that will be further tested in later wells.
The Atrush block covers 269 sq km, and the discovery well is 13 km northeast of Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd.’s early 2010 Shaikan oil discovery well.
The Atrush well was operated by the joint venture company General Exploration Partners Inc., which owns an 80% interest in the block. A unit of Marathon Oil Corp. owns the other 20%. GEP is held two thirds by Aspect Energy International LLC and one third by a unit of ShaMaran Petroleum Corp., Vancouver, BC.
Photo from SABIC Limburg BV.
US Department of the Interior.
