Genel Energy gauges Kurdistan Chia Surkh oil, gas discovery

April 10, 2013
Genel Energy PLC has gauged a high-flowing oil and gas discovery from which it plans to begin production within little more than a year in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Genel Energy PLC has gauged a high-flowing oil and gas discovery from which it plans to begin production within little more than a year in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

The company said the Chia Surkh-10 well in several days of tests flowed at rates as high as 11,950 b/d of 41° gravity oil and 15 MMcfd of gas. Total depth is 1,696 m in the Oligo-Miocene section. Wellhead flow pressure was 2,000 psi.

The company will run a second drillstem test in the Miocene section at the well, which was drilled on a large thrust fault-controlled structure with as much as 94 sq km of closure. Genel Energy has spudded the first appraisal well, Chia Surkh-11.

Genel Energy chief executive Tony Hayward said, “We intend to carry out a rapid appraisal and development program and expect to have an early production scheme operating in the first half of 2014. Over the same period we will be evaluating and drilling a number of other prospects we have in the Chia Surkh license.”

Chia Surkh-10 is the first of five high-impact exploratory wells Genel Energy plans to drill in the Kurdistan Region in 2013, Hayward said.

Chia Surkh-10 is the first exploratory well to be drilled on the Chia Surkh acreage since 1954. Genel Energy operates the 985 sq km license with a 60% interest, and the other 40% is held equally between Petoil Inc. and the Kurdistan Regional Government.

The Chia Surkh block borders Iran in the far southeastern part of the Kurdistan Region. Genel Energy also has interests in the region’s two largest producing fields, Tawke far to the northwest near the borders with Turkey and Syria and Taq Taq in the central Kurdistan Region.