By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Aug. 11 -- Unocal Ganal Ltd. announced a natural gas and oil discovery on the deepwater Gehem prospect in the Ganal production-sharing contract area, 5.6 km south of Ranggas field off East Kalimantan, Indonesia.
"Gehem-1 is potentially the most significant well we have drilled in the deepwater since the Seno discovery well in 1998 because it opens up a new, deeper oil and gas trend for us across our huge acreage holdings in the deepwater Kutei basin," said Charles R. Williamson, Unocal Corp. Chairman and CEO. "Gehem-1 showed us that there is an extremely thick, high-quality hydrocarbon-bearing reservoir at previously untested depths."
It's the first in a series of exploration wells designed to test the prospectivity of deeper, previously untested intervals underlying deepwater discoveries offshore East Kalimantan (OGJ Online, Mar. 25, 2002).
The Gehem-1 well encountered 617 ft of net gas and gas-condensate pay and 18 ft of net oil pay. The well was drilled in 5,981 ft of water to a total vertical depth of 15,241 ft. More than 400 ft of the net pay was in an interval that had not been penetrated during drilling in nearby Ranggas field (OGJ Online, Aug. 4, 2003).
The company said the Gehem structure covers 32.4 sq km and has the potential for significant oil pay in several zones downdip of the Gehem-1 well and in deeper intervals, which will be tested in subsequent appraisal wells. Gehem-1 has implications for appraising the deeper oil potential at Ranggas.
Photo from Odfjell Drilling.
