The AWE Ltd.-led group at Waitsia gas field in the onshore north Perth basin of Western Australia has shown strong flows from its Waitsia-2 drilling program.
The Waitsia-2 well flowed an average 38.5 MMcfd of gas on an 80/64-in. choke from a 42-m interval in the Kingia sandstone reservoir. Flowing wellhead pressure was measured at 1,315 psig during the 2-hr test.
The well was drilled between the Waitsia-1 discovery well, which previously flowed 25.7 MMcfd, and the Waitsia-3 well, which flowed 50 MMcfd.
This evaluation of Waitsia-2 is the second well in AWE’s three-well test program designed to determine deliverability from the southern extent of the field and to collect gas for compositional analysis.
David Biggs, AWE’s chief executive officer and managing director, said the net pay at Waitsia-2 is only 30% of that at Waitsia-3, so the high flow rate achieved in the test is an excellent result.
It also confirms that the Kingia sandstone at Waitsia-2 shares all the good reservoir properties observed in other wells in the field, notably high porosity and low total inerts content.
Further tests will be done on Waitsia-2 at various chokes and wellhead pressures before the company will address the final well in the 2017 program—Waitsia-4.
Waitsia field, which lies in production licences L1/L2, was discovered in September 2014 and is the largest onshore conventional gas discovery made in Australia in 40 years. It has the capability of supplying the Western Australian gas market with 100 terajoules/day for 10 years.
AWE is operator and shares equal partnership with Lattice Energy Ltd.—now owned by Beach Energy Ltd.
