Colombia
Emerald Energy PLC, London, set casing at 8,745 ft MD to test log-indicated hydrocarbon shows in the Cretaceous La Luna formation at its Aureliano-1 wildcat on the Fortuna Association Contract area in the Middle Magdalena Valley.
Maximum deviation through La Luna is 45°. Testing could take as long as 2 months. Emerald’s interest in the area is 90%.
Guinea-Bissau
State owned Petroguin let contracts to CGGVeritas and First Exchange Corp. to distribute information related to its third license round, which closes on Apr. 30, 2007.
The round covers land and offshore acreage.
Maastrichtian and Albian sands offer shelf-based opportunities in closures associated with salt diapirism. Modern salt imaging techniques could bring new life to this underexploited play, where the petroleum system and reservoirs are certain and traps are yet to be found, CGGVeritas said.
On the shelf edge and slope, Cretaceous reefs offer further potential particularly where faulting that defines the shelf margin provides an additional trap-forming mechanism.
India
Canoro Resources Ltd., Calgary, was moving a drilling rig to its Sonakhet location on the AA-ON/7 exploration block in the Assam-Arakan basin in northeastern India.
The well is to test a large basement high and a Barail subcrop feature. Projected TD is is 1,500 m.
While drilling Sonakhet, the company will run a vertical seismic profile in its Amguri-10 appraisal well on the Amguri Development Block.
Israel
Israel’s petroleum commissioner has offered an exploration/exploitation license until Mar. 29, 2007, for part of the former Heletz lease, 55 km south of Tel Aviv, terminated on June 29, 2006.
Heletz, discovered in 1955 as the eastern Mediterranean’s first oil field, has recovered 17 million bbl of an estimated 19 million bbl of 29° gravity oil in place in Valanginian-Barremian Heletz sandstone at 1,480 m (OGJ, July 5, 2004, p. 41). The field, on 12.5 sq km, has 88 wells, of which six wells are producing 70 b/d. No secondary or tertiary method has been employed. The lease area is 28,910 acres.
Oil production continues until the grant of the new license by Lapidoth Ltd., contractor for the state and the field’s present operator.
The lease will be awarded for an initial 3 years and a possible 4-year extension, and an interested lessee must prove the potential for commercial production beyond that possible using production methods employed to date or from other formations.
Niger
China National Petroleum Corp.’s Niger subsidiary cemented liner to 3,500 m and plans to test four intervals in the Saha-1 exploration well on the Tenere Block in Niger, said participant TG World Energy Corp., Calgary.
TG World did not further describe the four intervals identified on logs. Testing began in early February and was to take at least several weeks.
Thailand
Pan Orient Energy Corp., Calgary, was testing the POE-9 oil discovery on Concession L44/43 onshore Thailand.
After flowing as much as 560 b/d of fluid, 15% water, before clean-up with small amounts of gas, the well was flowing 260 b/d of fluid, 1% water, on a 13/64-in. choke. The flow is from the top 17 m of 50-m-thick volcanic zone 2 at 853 m after a light acid treatment. Porosity is calculated at 6-9%.
The well is to be placed on production right away, so other prospective zones will not be tested. Pan Orient will develop the field, subject to government approval, using at least one rig.
POE-9 is in the southern fault block of what is interpreted on seismic to be a 12 sq km structural closure segmented into four fault blocks.
Ukraine
Shelton Canada Corp., Edmonton, plans to acquire a 50% interest in the North Kerchenskaya concession in the southern Azov Sea with Ukrainian state Chernomornaftogas holding the other 50%.
On the concession is the North Kerchenskaya structure, where two gas wells defined an estimated 160 bcf of recoverable gas. Each well flowed 2.5 MMcfd from Miocene age reservoirs at 1,300 m. The field is 25 km offshore in 12 m of water.
The concession is adjacent to North Bulganakskoye and East Kazantipskoye, both producing gas from sediments of similar age.
Shelton already holds 50% interest in the West Birjuchja, North Birjuchja, and East Birjuchja concessions.
Arizona
Ridgeway Petroleum Corp., Houston, spudded the State 11-29-30 exploratory well in Apache County in search of carbon dioxide and helium in the Amos Wash member of the Permian Supai formation (see chart, OGJ, July 5, 1999, p. 89).
Projected TD is 2,200 ft. The drillsite is 2 miles from the company’s State 11-18-29 well that blew out during drilling in 2004.
The two-rig 2007 winter drilling program consists of as many as 12 wells to further evaluate reserves and productivity of the St. Johns helium and CO2 field the company discovered in 1994. The company controls 200,000 acres in Arizona and New Mexico.
Louisiana
Gulfport Energy Corp., Oklahoma City, reported a new field discovery at East Hackberry in Cameron Parish, 80 miles west of Lafayette.
The Hackberry 2007-1 well cut 300 gross ft of Upper Oligocene Marg How sand with 155 ft of apparent net pay with 26% average porosity at 10,850 ft. It also found 18 ft of net pay in Upper Camerina at 11,700 ft.
The company was unable to log at 11,700-12,000 ft MTD, where there were indications of shows, and plans to set pipe and if possible drill out to explore the rest of the Camerina.
Completion of the 2007-1 and 2006-1 wells, the first two drilled on proprietary 3D seismic data, is to start later in the first quarter. The barge rig will move to drill the third well, and a land rig is to spud the first onshore well in the field in the quarter.
Montana
The Evaline 1-18 twin well, a Mississippian Lodgepole reef test in Valley County, is to be deepened 100 ft to the projected oil reservoir in mid-February after severe weather clears, said Touchstone Resources Ltd., Vancouver, BC.
A completion rig is on location. Coastal Petroleum Co., Apalachicola, Fla., operates the well (OGJ Online, Aug. 18, 2006).
Texas - Panhandle
Bankers Petroleum Ltd., Calgary, which was spudding a Palo Duro basin exploration well in early February, plans to sell 27% of its working interest in 375,000 net acres to Peninsula Merchant Syndications Corp., a private merchant bank.
The $19.5 million in proceeds is to be used to fund Bankers’s 2007 exploration budget in the basin, where the Cogdell 1-64 well is drilling and two other wells are planned in the next 4 months.
Bankers is seeking permits to shoot a 3D seismic survey over part of its acreage.