Area Drilling

Oct. 22, 2007

Papua New Guinea

Austral Pacific Energy Ltd., Wellington, NZ, will appraise the remote Stanley gas-condensate discovery in far western Papua New Guinea.

The 1999 discovery well, 170 km west-northwest of the Moran fields and 30 km east of the border with Indonesia’s Papua Province, went to TD 10,600 ft and encountered the Cretaceous Toro formation at 10,300 ft. The untested well cut 35 m of excellent quality Toro reservoir with 13.5 m of gross gas pay interpreted from wireline logs.

Austral Pacific operates PRL 4 with 28.92% interest. InterOil Corp. has 43.13%, and Horizon Oil Ltd. has 27.95%. The government extended the license 5 years from August 2005.

Austral Pacific plans to shoot 43 km of 2D seismic late this year to address the field’s structural uncertainty and locate an updip appraisal-development well. It is negotiating with the OK Tedi mine, which might buy gas to generate electricity.

Peru

Test rates at Corvina field on Block Z1 off northwestern Peru totaled 8,300 b/d of oil and 184 MMcfd of gas after seven drillstem tests were conducted at the third and most productive well, CX11-14D, said BPZ Energy Inc., Houston.

The company plans to dually complete the well and will spud the CX11-18XD well.

CX11-14D is productive mostly from the Lower Miocene Upper Zorritos formation, where six drillstem tests were run. Two were in the oil zone and four in the gas zone.

The 100 Mcfd gauged from the Middle Miocene Cardalitos formation was noncommercial in the offshore setting but encouraging enough “to keep evaluating its potential in our onshore blocks,” the company said.

Prince Edward Island

Corridor Resources Inc., Halifax, NS, was to cement production casing to TD 3,403 m at the New Harmony-1 wildcat north of Souris on eastern Prince Edward Island.

The well had gas shows in Carboniferous Bradelle sandstone at 3,790-3,403 m, said PetroWorth Resources Inc., Calgary.

Corridor believes that frac stimulation is needed due to low porosities, and a decision won’t be made until it has evaluated all the log and sidewall core information.

Arizona

Vanterra Energy, Denver, plans to drill a Basin and Range Province wildcat in northwestern Arizona in 2008.

PetroSun Inc., Scottsdale, Ariz., said it signed a drilling commitment with Vanterra on a 12,783-acre lease in Mohave County where Vanterra developed the prosect. The well is to be drilled to basement or at least 6,000 ft to evaluate all zones of interest.

The agreement grants PetroSun a 25% carried working interest through casing point. The lease provides an 81.25% net revenue interest to the working interest owners.

Most of PetroSun’s Arizona holdings are in the Holbrook basin.

Kentucky

Meridian Resource Corp., Houston, has drilled two wells to evaluate gas potential in Devonian New Albany shale northwest of Corydon in Henderson County, Ky., in the southern Illinois basin.

The company, operator with 92% working interest, plans to run a full log suite and gather core samples for thorough geochemical analysis from the Farms of Meadow Hills-1 well, drilled to TD 4,600 ft. A second well, Keach-1, is drilling at 3,900 ft.

The company owns 30,000 acres in the general area, where other active operators include El Paso Corp., Chesapeake Energy Corp., EOG Resources Inc., Forest Oil Corp., Quicksilver Resources Inc., and American Oil & Gas Inc.

Washington

Exxel Energy Corp., Houston, became operator of the Brown 7-24 wildcat, TD 12,668 ft, and with the other working interest owners will analyze well data to determine future completion activities.

The well, drilled by EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc., is in Grant County in the Columbia River basin, where Exxel has interests in 415,000 net acres (see map, OGJ, Sept. 3, 2007, p. 31).

Exxel said it plans to apply for permits to drill its top three prospects in the fourth quarter of 2007 and remains committed to evaluate its best prospects in 6-10 months.