Australia
Oil production began Nov. 18 from Callawonga-1, which operator Beach Petroleum NL, Adelaide, describes as the most westerly output achieved in the Cooper/Eromanga region.
Beach assesses P50 reserves to be 1.5 million bbl at Callawonga field, on PEL 92 about 7 km north of Christies oil field and 90 km northwest of Moomba.
Callawonga-1, drilled in July 2006 when it cut 8 m of net oil pay in Jurassic Namur sandstone, was producing on free-flow at 2,100 b/d on Nov. 20.
Beach Petroleum 75% and Cooper Energy Ltd. 25% are continuing to explore PEL 92 using a recently acquired 3D seismic survey.
The Northern Territory government granted exploration permits 103 and 104 totaling 5.5 million acres in the nonproducing Georgina basin.
Texalta Petroleum Ltd., Calgary, purchased the 50% of the acreage held by its Australian partners, giving Texalta 100% working interest.
The permits took effect Nov. 21, 2006, for 5 years. The work program includes seismic reprocessing, more seismic surveys, and the drilling of structural test wells. Texalta began preliminary seismic reprocessing in Calgary.
Oman
TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Co. ASA, Asker, Norway, began acquiring 6,000 km of multiclient 2D seismic data in the Arabian Sea off southernmost Oman.
With strong industry prefunding, the survey also involves gravity and magnetic data.
The survey area is considered highly prospective yet underexplored and lacks any previous data in the deepwater areas, the company said.
Petroleum systems of interest include a subophiolite play and extensions of the prolific hydrocarbon producing Mesozoic rift basins in Yemen as well as postulated overlying Tertiary basins.
Venezuela
Chevron Corp. let a contract to SCAN Geophysical ASA, Oslo, for a 3D seismic survey off Venezuela.
The survey covers two nonadjacent areas and will take several months using the M/V SCAN Resolution, recently arrived in Venezuela.
Chevron has two gas discoveries in the Plataforma Deltana area south of Trinidad and Tobago and recently won a gas-prospective block in the Caribbean on the north side of the Paraguana Peninsula.
Ontario
Greentree Gas & Oil Ltd., London, Ont., said an exploratory well in Haldimand County near Nanticoke is preparing to drill through the Ordovician Trenton-Black River and Cambrian intervals.
The GGOL-67 well cut 8.5 m of sandstone in the Silurian Thorold and Grimsby formations, of which 2.5 m had more than 8% porosity.
Primary target is the Trenton-Black River hydrothermal dolomite play.
Greentree Gas & Oil spudded a light oil prospect in Tilbury West Township, Essex County, south of Detroit, Mich.
The GGOL-71 well, being drilled with cable tools, offsets a Talisman Energy Inc. horizontal oil producer along a seismically defined Ordovician Trenton-Black River anomaly, Greentree said.
Results are not expected until the first quarter of 2007.
Louisiana
Goodrich Petroleum Corp., Houston, took a farmout on 16,000 acres in 33 sq miles in Alabama Bend oil and gas field along the Cotton Valley oil and gas trend in western Bienville Parish from an undisclosed farmor.
Objectives are primarily Cotton Valley and secondarily Hosston and Bossier.
Goodrich will own a 100% interest in the first well drilled in each of the 33 sq miles. The farmor has the right to participate for up to 50% on subsequent wells in each section or unit. Goodrich must drill one well every 90 days from the completion date of the previous well.
The agreement provides for no upfront cost to Goodrich. The farmor reserved an overriding royalty interest equal to the difference in lease burdens and 25%, leaving Goodrich with a 75% net revenue interest.
The deal expands Goodrich’s position in the trend by 11% to 103,000 net acres, the equivalent of 400 vertical well locations on 40-acre spacing.
Alabama Bend field was discovered in 1950.
Montana
Gold Point Energy Corp., Vancouver, BC, was spudding a wildcat on the 1,840-acre Woody Creek Dome prospect in 3s-31e, Big Horn County, on the Crow Indian Reservation.
GP Energy, operator with 70% interest in the prospect, seeks oil in Pennsylvanian Tensleep at 2,250 ft and Amsden at 2,370 ft. The area is 35 miles east-southeast of Billings.
Soap Creek, Soap Creek East, and Marcus Snyder fields within 15 miles of the prospect have combined cumulative production of more than 4 million bbl of oil from the same horizons.
Texas - Gulf Coast
PYR Energy Corp., Denver, is attempting to interest industry partners in drilling the 338-acre West Westbury Prospect, which targets Eocene Yegua sand reservoirs in Jefferson County.
The prospect, based on 3D seismic amplitude, is 1.5 miles southwest of an analog well in which PYR has no interest. That well, completed in October 2004 on the same fault block but subject to different seismic attributes, produced 21.9 bcfe through April 2006. The current flow rate is 35 MMcfd of gas and 1,700 b/d of condensate.
A second well in which PYR Energy has no interest, the Paggi Broussard-2, is producing 28 MMcfd and 1,500 b/d. It is in the same fault block with different seismic attributes. PYR Energy holds 100% interest in the prospect.