Niko chases oil in Hazira gas field off India

Feb. 28, 2005
Niko chases oil in Hazira gas field off India Niko Resources Ltd., Calgary, plans to further delineate a hefty oil pay zone at its Hazira gas field just off western India in the Cambay basin.

Niko Resources Ltd., Calgary, plans to further delineate a hefty oil pay zone at its Hazira gas field just off western India in the Cambay basin.

The company said it has successfully tested the oil zone in five wells and can identify it on logs in nine wells in the field. It first encountered the zone in the A-2 appraisal well in 2002.

The most recent penetration, Hazira OS-3, gauged oil at the rate of 6,000 b/d with 442 psi pressure on a 1.2 in. choke from a formation at 1,200 m.

It is the third well drilled from the platform that was installed in July 2004 to develop portions of the even shallower Miocene-aged gas pays that could not be accessed from shore or from a 1.5-km causeway built from shore to a land-based drilling platform in shallow waters of the Gulf of Cambay.

Niko, operator with 33.33% working interest in the 50-sq-km gas field 25 km southwest of Surat, and partner Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. Ltd. left space on the platform for future oil production. Niko hopes the next three wells from the platform will help determine areal extent and reserves in the oil zone. Meanwhile, it will complete OS-3 as a gas well.

Hazira field averaged 124 MMcfd of gas in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2004, up from 105 MMcfd in fiscal 2003. Late in calendar 2004 it was producing from 22 wells, Niko said.