Australia
Sentry Petroleum Ltd., Denver, acquired from Medina Group of China the rights to explore ATP 865, a 1.68 million acre permit in Queensland’s Adavale basin 1,000 km west of Brisbane.
The company identified the Sherwood Park prospect and numerous leads. The basin covers 14 million acres and has a proven petroleum system but is lightly explored with fewer than 60 exploration wells.
ATP 865 is within 30 km of a 13 bcf gas field and 40 km east of fields that contain more than 15 million bbl of recoverable oil. The block acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and the assignor’s retention of a 0.5% royalty after the transaction.
Chile
The government signed a special operating contract on Apr. 30 on the 6,700 sq km Tranquilo Block in the Magellan basin with Improved Petroleum Recovery Traquilo Chile, Dallas, and Manas Petroleum Corp., Baar, Switzerland.
IPR and Manas committed a three-phase, $33.24 million exploration program. It calls for spending $14.36 million the first 3 years for 360 km of 2D and 160 sq km of 3D seismic and drilling six wells.
Tranquilo is the largest of 10 blocks awarded in Chile’s November 2007 licensing round (see map, OGJ, Dec. 24, 2007, p. 36). IPR, operator, and Manas hold the block 50-50.
The block’s petroleum system is proved with Tranquilo gas field and the Esperanza and Manzano wells. Four wells on the Esperanza structure had gas-condensate shows.
The basin has 417 km network of gas pipelines that connect the main fields to consumption centers, such us Methanex, the world’s largest methanol plant, and Chile’s state ENAP has four gas processing plants in the basin.
Denmark
Danica Resources AS, Copenhagen, was awarded a 6-year exploration and production license covering 6,429 sq km in the Danish Baltic Sea that includes Lolland and Falster islands.
Preliminary evaluation of the license, which covers Block 5410 and parts of 5411 and 5412, revealed several large structures similar to hydrocarbon producing structures in northern Poland and Germany. The Danish state has a 20% interest in the license.
Greenland
TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Co. launched more than 140,000 km of geophysical surveys in two areas off Greenland.
The company is running 80,000 km of aeromagnetic and aerogravity surveys in the Labrador Sea/Ungava basin and 58,000 km off northeast Greenland. Data are to be available in the fourth quarter. An 8,300-km 2D seismic shoot is planned in Baffin Bay early in the third quarter to infill the company’s 60 by 60-km grid acquired in 2007.
Papua New Guinea
InterOil Corp., Whitehorse, Yukon, said its Elk-4 well established the presence of gas-condensate on the Antelope structure beneath the Elk structure on PPL 238 in Papua New Guinea.
The well intersected the Antelope structure at 7,402 ft and experienced a kick, and gas-condensate flowed to surface and was flared. InterOil plans to deepen the well.
British Columbia
Subsidiaries of Imperial Oil Ltd. and ExxonMobil Canada Ltd. have acquired 115,000 acres of exploration rights in the Horn River basin in Northeast British Columbia.
The acquisitions came at land sales since September 2007. The interests are held 50-50. The licenses are 70 km northeast of Fort Nelson, BC. Imperial Oil will act as operator.
California
Ormat Technologies Inc., Reno, Nev., brought the Heber South geothermal project to commercial operation in mid-April in southern California’s Imperial Valley.
Integrated into the existing Heber Complex, Heber South is supplied by three wells 4,000 ft deep and brings the total output supplied from the complex to 92 Mw.
Nevada
Eden Energy Corp., Vancouver, BC, reported a dry hole at the Noah Federal-1 wildcat in White Pine County, Nev.
The well, operated by a Midland, Tex., independent in 31-26n-55e, 18 miles southeast of Blackburn oil field, was plugged and abandoned at TD 7,080 ft. It encountered its target formation, Devonian Simonson dolomite, at 5,058 ft or within 200 ft of the company’s prognosis based on seismic interpretation and structural model.
Eden Energy has more than 190,000 acres in the area with numerous structural leads and plans to merge the well results into its geologic model before deciding how to proceed.
Texas — Gulf Coast
Harvest Natural Resources Inc., Houston, and a private company formed an area of mutual interest to explore and develop deeper Frio, Vicksburg, and Yegua prospects in the Texas and Louisiana Upper Gulf Coast.
The AMI covers 20 counties from Nueces County to Cameron Parish and includes state waters. Harvest, with 55% operated interest in the AMI, will fund the first $20 million of new lease acquisitions, geology and geophysical studies, seismic reprocessing, and drilling costs.
The private company has contributed two prospects, including leases and proprietary 3D data sets, and numerous leads generated in the last 3 decades. Harvest and Fusion Geophysical LLC’s technical staff reviewed the prospects.
A prospect in Calcasieu Parish is to spud early in the third quarter of 2008. The private company’s geological team includes John Amoruso and Denny and Larry Bartell, who discovered Amoruso (Deep Bossier) field in 2005.
Energy Corp. of America, private Denver operator, plans to spud the BSMC-1 well on its Austin Bayou prospect in Brazoria County, Tex., in early May.
The well targets Lower Frio/Vicksburg sands at 19,700 ft with an expected drilling time of 80 days. Greywolf Drilling Co. has the contract. ECA is operator with 76.75% working interest.
The rig will then return to Brazos Belle gas-condensate field in Fort Bend County, where ECA as operator with 100% working interest just completed its fourth horizontal Wilcox producer at 19,280 ft measured depth.
The company has begun targeting gas in Devonian Marcellus shale with horizontal and vertical development wells in the Appalachian basin, where it holds 750,000 acres.
