By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, May 23 -- Norwood Resources Ltd., Vancouver, BC, logged 138 ft of potential net hydrocarbon pay in its third exploratory well in southwestern Nicaragua and identified 387 ft of net pay in a previously drilled well.
The company will test the new well, Maderas Negras-1, in July. It was drilled to 6,400 ft to test sands of the Paleocene Brito formation and found the same Brito interval as in the company's San Bartolo well 3 miles southwest (OGJ, Mar. 24, 2008, p. 42).
Meanwhile, in the San Bartolo well, the company identified 387 ft of net hydrocarbon pay in the overlying Paleocene Masachapa formation. Masachapa was not targeted in the Maderas Negras well.
Maderas Negras's potential net pay is based on porosity criteria of 10% or greater and hydrocarbon saturations of 40% or better. Porosities are 10% to more than 30%.
Log results will be further calibrated to 60 ft of retrieved whole-core sample being analyzed in Houston.
The Masachapa hydrocarbons had not previously been recognized in the San Bartolo well due to the effects of flushing of near-wellbore hydrocarbons by overweight drilling fluids, the company said. Norwood is re-entering the well to run cased-hole logs and determine the need for frac jobs and retesting.
"The company is now moving forward with an extensive testing program to determine the sustained productivity potential and commerciality of these hydrocarbon-bearing formations," Norwood said.
The wells are on the updip margin of the Sandino basin on the 845,000-acre Indoklanicsa Concession, only one third of which is covered by seismic. The other two thirds is considered prospective, the company said.
Norwood's first two wells tested gas and 34° gravity oil. It plans to select and drill a fourth location later in 2008. The company has found operations to be slower and more costly than expected because of the lack of infrastructure and services.
Nicaragua has 35 wells drilled all time and does not as yet produce hydrocarbons.
