Quebec

Dec. 8, 2009
Canadian Forest Oil Ltd. has committed to drill and complete a horizontal well in the Ordovician Utica formation near Montreal, Que.

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Dec. 8
– Canadian Forest Oil Ltd. has committed to drill and complete a horizontal well in the Ordovician Utica formation near Montreal, Que.

Canadian Forest will earn an interest in the Utica and Ordovician Lorraine formations of the Richelieu North Permit in the Contrecoeur area 50 km northeast of Montreal, said Junex Inc., Quebec City.

Contractually, Forest must spend $4 million to earn 60% working interest in the shale section of the lands. In such event, Junex will retain the 40% balance of the working interest in the shales and 100% working interest in other geological formations, including the Ordovician Trenton-Black River.

Forest proposed to drill a vertical pilot hole and acquire wellbore data in the winter of 2010, then analyze the data, and drill and complete a horizontal wellbore in the Utica formation in mid-2010.

Junex drilled the St-Antoine-sur-Richelieu-1 well on the permit in 2008. The primary target of the well was to test a fault-bounded “sag” zone in Trenton-Black River that was identified on seismic data. The well was drilled to TD 1,475 m in the Cambrian Potsdam formation and cased.

Natural gas shows were recorded while drilling parts of the Lorraine, Utica, Trenton-Black River carbonates, Chazy carbonates, Beekmantown carbonates, and Potsdam clastics. Junex perforated, acidized, and tested part of the Beekmantown dolomite, where logs indicated porosities of 6-10%. This zone was found to have low permeability.

Junex also perforated, acidized, and tested the Chazy oolitic limestones unit, where significant gas shows associated with a hydrothermal dolomite zone were observed, but again permeability was extremely low. Junex suspended the well bore for possible future use in Utica and Lorraine shale testing.