Area Drilling

March 12, 2001
Santos Ltd., operator of petroleum exploration permit 154, said its McIntee-1 wildcat opened a gas field in the Otway basin of Victoria.

Correction

Saskatchewan's gas royalty rate varies positively with well production and as such is incorrectly represented as a horizontal line in Fig. 4b, OGJ, Feb. 5, 2001, p. 40. Producers in the province require a gas price of $2.64/GJ to achieve the target rate of return, not the $2.91/GJ shown in Table 4, p. 42.

Australia

Santos Ltd., operator of petroleum exploration permit 154, said its McIntee-1 wildcat opened a gas field in the Otway basin of Victoria.

McIntee-1 found a 16.5-m net gas column in Cretaceous Waarre sand at 1,539-56 m. Interests are Santos 90% and Beach Petroleum NL 10%.

Canary Islands

Repsol YPF, Madrid, is seeking government permission to explore waters surrounding the Canary Islands for oil.

A Repsol YPF spokeswoman said the company plans to explore nine oil blocks, consisting of 6,160 sq km in the Atlantic Ocean.

Indonesia

Java
Premier Oil Natuna Sea Ltd., London, said three commercial appraisal wells at Ujung Pangkah field in East Java, confirmed reserves of more than 450 bcf of rich gas on the Pangkah Block structure.

Premier said there is a possibility of developing oil from an accumulation underlying the gas and that seismic will be shot later this year to assess a possible western extension of the structure.

The field is close to important power markets in East Java, Premier said.

Interests are Premier, operator, 40%, Amerada Hess (Indonesia-Pangkah) Ltd. 36%, Gulf Resources (Pangkah) Ltd. 12%, and Dana Petroleum PLC 12%.

Italy

ENI SPA's Agip Division gauged 1,000 b/d of 34 degrees gravity oil and 1.1 MMcfd of associated gas at Miglianico 1 on the Bucchianico exploration license 100 miles east of Rome.

The well, in a lightly explored area north of Ortona on the Abruzzo coast, was drilled after geological and geophysical studies identified hydrocarbons in carbonate rock of unspecified age. The well cut 100 m of net pay at 4,800 m.

Field size will be known after 2 or 3 wells have been drilled. Current data suggest 40-45 million bbl of reserves, considerably smaller than what has been found at Val d'Agri, in Italy's southern Apen- nines, Agip said.

Russia

Far East
BP PLC will take part in the Sakhalin-4 consortium with Rosneft's unit Sakhalin- morneftegaz, Rosneft vice-president Stepan Zemliouk said.

Zemliouk said the agreement is to be signed at the end of March, Interfax news agency reported.

Sakhalin-4 is a project to explore for and develop an estimated 3.2 tcf of gas off Moskalvo in the Gulf of Sakhalin northwest of Sakhalin Island (see map, OGJ, July 19, 1999, p. 44).

Interfax reported present shares in the project of Rosneft and Sakhalinmornefte- gaz each 25.5%. BP as successor to Arco Chemical Co. would hold 49%.

Saudi Arabia

ExxonMobil Corp. and Royal Dutch/Shell joined TotalFinaElf in the bidding for all three major gas ventures on offer to foreign investors in Saudi Arabia, Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reported.

The projects are in South Ghawar near Al-Hufuf in the kingdom's Eastern Province, the Red Sea, and Shaybah in the Empty Quarter of southeast Saudi Arabia.

Marathon Oil Co. said it agreed to review a gas, power, water, and petrochemical project.

South Africa

Pioneer Natural Resources Co., Dallas, will run 460 sq miles of 3D seismic survey and drill an appraisal well in second quarter 2001 near a new field discovery on Bredasdorp basin Block 9.

The E-DQ1 discovery well on the Boomslang prospect in 450 ft of water cut 108 ft (128 gross ft) of net pay in synrift shallow-marine sands consisting of an oil leg under a gas column at 6,600 ft.

Part of the oil leg interval flowed at rates up to 3,120 b/d of oil and 2.6 MMcfd of gas. The gas column flowed a constant 24 MMcfd of gas and 300 b/d of condensate for 5 days.

The discovery confirms a prospective oil and gas trend on the basin's southern flank that is similar to the gas producing trend on its northern flank and valudates several analogous prospects, Pioneer said.

E-DQ1 is 3.8 km southwest of the E-O1 accumulation, 16 km south-southwest of the E-CB1 accumulation, and 40 km southeast of Oribi oil field.

Kansas

The state consumes about as much energy as it produces, says the Kansas Geological Survey.

Production in 2000 is estimated at 34 million bbl of oil and 560 bcf of gas, both slight increases from 1999. The state said 2,273 operators reported oil production in 1999.

Wellhead value of Kansas hydrocarbon production is estimated at $3.046 billion in 2000, comparable to the state's cash receipts for all crops.

In 1998, 70% less energy was required per dollar of gross state product than it was in 1977.

Mississippi

Denbury Resources Inc., Dallas, said closure of its $42 million acquisition of assets from Airgas Inc. sets up several potential oil development projects around Little Creek oil field and elsewhere in the state.

Acquired were 10 producing carbon dioxide wells near Jackson, Miss., and a 183-mile, 20 in. pipeline that is carrying CO2 to Denbury's Little Creek field, the state's largest CO2 enhanced oil recovery project.

Denbury estimated the acquisition included 1 tcf of usable CO2 reserves and substantial nonproducing reserves that could be developed with addition of treating facilities.