Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent
MELBOURNE, June 15 -- Perth-based Senex Energy Ltd. (formerly Victoria Petroleum) discovered an oil field with its Vintage Crop-1 wildcat in South Australian Eromanga basin permit PEL 516.
The well encountered a 10-m gross oil column containing 3 m of net pay in the McKinlay Member of the Lower Cretaceous age Murta formation.
Senex ran a drillstem test that recovered 39 bbl of light oil in 3 hr—equivalent to a flow rate of 312 b/d.
Preliminary interpretation of the test and wireline log data suggests at least 305,000 bbl of oil in place.
Oil shows also were detected in the underlying Namur and Birkhead sands of Upper Jurassic age. The Namur section will be tested after running a 7-in. production casing.
The well is to be drilled down into the Permian section where several 9-m cores will provide preliminary evaluation of unconventional gas targets in the underlying coals and shales.
Vintage Crop-1 is Senex’s first appraisal of the unconventional gas potential in the Cooper (Permian) basin.
The company said the discovery will pay for testing the Permian coal and shale gas targets. Senex will cut a 9-m core in the coal sequences of the Toolachee formation and four 9-m cores in shales of the Roseneath and Murteree formations.
A specialized logging suite to determine the minerals present in the shales will be run while the cores will be used for desorption tests to determine gas and hydrocarbon liquids content along with evaluation of porosity, permeability, and mechanical properties.
US Department of the Interior.
File photo from PDVSA..
