Norwood Resources Ltd., Vancouver, BC, discovered gas-condensate and light oil in eight zones in what could be Nicaragua’s first potentially commercial discovery.
The San Bartolo Rodriguez Cano-1 wildcat in the Sandino basin near the Pacific Coast southwest of Managua discovered hydrocarbons below 6,000 ft in various turbidite sands of the Paleocene Brito formation, the company said. Measured total depth is 8,790 ft with 11.5° deviation at TD.
“The company has logged the well and independent petrophysical analysis combined with core (percussion and rotary) analysis has assigned a combined 532 ft of pay, including 232 ft of conventional pay and another 300 ft of naturally fractured low permeability sands in eight separate zones,” Norwood said. “Results from core analysis indicate porosities in the 17% to 21% range with permeability from 3 to 30 md. These porosity measurements agree favorably with the log measurements.”
Norwood cemented 7-in. casing at 8,764 ft and plans to stimulate and test San Bartolo-1 in the next several weeks. Drilling took 47 days at this, the country’s first exploration well in more than 35 years. The rig is moving 11 km to drill the Las Mesas structure, where amplitude and velocity seismic sections indicate similar but shallower Brito sands. Both wells are on the 845,780-acre Oklanicsa Concession.
The discovery well is 75 miles north of the border with Costa Rica and 75 miles south of the border with Honduras, which just disclosed plans to promote its oil and gas potential (OGJ Online, Feb. 8, 2007). The discovery is 300 miles south-southeast of nearest oil production in Guatemala and more than twice that distance from production in Colombia.
Norwood operates the concession with 70% interest, and Industria Oklahoma-Nicaragua SA has the rest.
