Area Drilling

April 3, 2000
Empire Oil & Gas NL, Perth, is to drill near Australia's first significant post-World War II oil discovery at Rough Range on the Exmouth Peninsula.

Australia

Empire Oil & Gas NL, Perth, is to drill near Australia's first significant post-World War II oil discovery at Rough Range on the Exmouth Peninsula.

Empire has a 100% interest in permit EP 41 Part 3 and has received approval to drill on the highest mapped culmination in Rough Range field. The well is to spud in April, going to 1,150 m to test Cretaceous Birdrong and Wogatti sandstone reservoirs. Empire mapped a separate anticline 2 km south.

West Australian Petroleum Pty. Ltd. discovered Rough Range in 1953. The field has not produced commercially. The discovery well flowed 1,600 b/d from an 8 m oil zone. Ten appraisal wells were dry or found only traces of oil.

Empire calculated oil in place for the seismically-mapped Rouge Range anticline at 2.7 million bbl.

Venezuela

The Vinccler unit of Benton Oil & Gas Co., Carpinteria, Calif., plans to have drilled 75 wells during 2000-01 on the South Monagas Unit in eastern Venezuela.

Crude oil from the unit brought $5.65/bbl on Dec. 31, 1998. During 1999 Vinccler focused on cutting costs and maintaining facilities and drilled no new wells.

By yearend 1999 the price had risen to $12.80/bbl. Benton resumed drilling in December in alliance with Schlumberger Inc. and Helmerich & Payne Inc. and was on its sixth well in late March.

The first two wells met or exceeded Benton's expectation of an initial 500 b/d/well.

Benton acquired its 80% interest in the reactivation unit, which contains Uracoa, Tucupita, and Bombal fields, in mid-1992. Combined production, after declining in 1998-99, stabilized at 25,000 b/d in third quarter 1999.

Nova Scotia

Corridor Resources Inc., Halifax, Nova Scotia, plans to file for regulatory approval this month for a 2D seismic program in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The 10-day program in fall 2001 would delineate potential natural gas prospects east of Hudson's Bay Oil & Gas Co.'s 1970 East Point E-49 significant natural gas discovery. That well flowed at a rate of 5.5 MMcfd in 1974.

Corridor said all seismic lines would be more than 10 miles from the Cape Breton coast and that the operation would have no significant effect on fishing.

Louisiana

Hunt Oil Co., Dallas, completed the ninth well in Northwest Myette Point field since discovery in late 1994.

The 1 State Lease 14522, St. Mary Parish, flowed 9.9 MMcfd of gas, 676 bc/d, and 14 bw/d with 6,476 psi FTP on a 17.5/64 in. choke from a Lower Miocene sand at 16,266-360 ft.

The field produces 69 MMcfd and 5,460 bc/d and has yielded 51.9 bcf and 4.6 million bbl through Jan. 1, 2000. Interests are Hunt 50% and North Central Oil Corp., Houston, 25%, and Preston Exploration Co. LP, The Woodlands, Tex., 25%.

Texas

Offshore
Spinnaker Exploration Co., Houston, is developing the first commercial hydrocarbon discovery in North Padre Island state waters (OGJ, Feb. 21, 2000, p. 81).

The 2 NPI 883 cut four productive Frio sands and confirmed a total productive area that exceeds 1,000 acres. The field is in 80 ft of water 40 miles southeast of Corpus Christi. TD is 13,490 ft MD, 12,986 ft TVD. More drilling is likely, and production is anticipated by Oct. 1.

Working interests are Spinnaker 35%, Houston Exploration Co. 30%, and Ranger Oil Ltd., Calgary, 35%.