Madagascar
Niko Resources Ltd., Calgary, will take a farmout from private EnerMad Corp. and become operator of the Grand Prix production sharing contract area in the Morondava basin off west-central Madagascar.
Niko is to earn a 75% interest by funding 3,000 sq km of 3D seismic in early 2009 and drilling as many as two exploration wells on the 16,845 sq km block shallow to 1,500 m of water in the Mozambique Channel.
Niko said the block has multiple play types in rocks of Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary age. The companies are reprocessing 7,600 line-km of 2D seismic. The deal is subject to OMNIS approval and the signing of definitive agreements.
Alberta
Advantage Energy Income Fund, Calgary, hiked its 2008 capital budget by $55 million to $200 million, mainly to fund Devonian Montney shale drilling at Glacier in northwestern Alberta.
Advantage drilled five vertical Montney delineation wells in the quarter ended Mar. 31, 2008, in the area, which is adjacent to the Swan Lake and Tupper pools.
The Glacier property is accessible most of the year, and rigs are secured.
The fund plans to spend $39 million at Glacier to drill five gross horizontal wells, five gross vertical delineation wells, and start a gathering system. It averages 93% working interest in 83 sections.
Quebec
Gastem, Montreal, obtained a permit to explore the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence north of Canada’s Prince Edward Island.
The permit covers 20,000 ha held by Quebec in the Magdalen basin. The area contains saliferous structures similar to those found in the Gulf of Mexico, that originate from evaporates of the Lower Carboniferous Windsor Group, Gastem said.
The Upper Carboniferous rocks, consisting of interbedded sandstones and shales, are cut by these structures, creating a potential combination of traps and reservoir rocks for the natural gas generated in the underlying formations.
Texas – East
Saxon Oil Co. Ltd., Dallas, said it has 18-23% working interest in 1,273 gross acres in Panola and Rusk counties, Tex., in the emerging Lower Bossier/Haynesville shale gas play.
The acreage, operated by Comstock Resources Inc., Frisco, Tex., is held by production from 11 Cotton Valley limestone wells in Oak Hill, North Tatum, and Carthage Northwest gas fields. Comstock has not proposed Haynesville drilling, Saxon said.
The holdings are 15 miles west and southwest of the Penn Virginia Corp. 5H Fogle well in Harrison County, where the initial test rate was 8 MMcfd from Haynesville with 5,000 psi flowing casing pressure (OGJ, June 16, 2008, p. 39).
Saxon noted that 12 rigs are running and at least 10 horizontal wells have been drilled in the Haynesville play in 14 counties in East Texas and North Louisiana. Louisiana has reportedly leased several tracts in DeSoto and Caddo parishes at $27,000-28,000/acre with 27.5-30% royalty.
