Magnus Oil & Gas Corp. is halfway through a 50-well drilling program that is delineating the new Powder River Consolidated field in Goliad County, Tex.
John Ehrman, chairman of privately held Magnus, told OGJ the field is defined by a 3D seismic survey. He began the 50-well drilling program in February 2006 and expects to finish in mid-2010, drilling one to two wells/month.
Magnus began operating in 2004, after Ehrman saw a deep prospect at a time when Chesapeake was drilling 18,000-ft wells in the area. He noted a lot of shallow potential on seismic.
The company’s strategy has been to line up multiple 3D seismic events in the Frio sands (now called Powder River Consolidated) and the Yegua at 5,100 ft on some prospects.
Drilling
Magnus is currently using a rig from Titan Drilling Co., based in Luling, Tex.
Rig No. 3 is rated to 5,500 ft, runs doubles, and will drill a 10-well contract, using two crews on 12-hr shifts. Magnus Vice-Pres. Steve Sportsman monitors operations from Corpus Christi.
The vertical wells are drilled with lightweight mud, ramped from 9.1-10.3 ppg.
Typically, the company runs Baker Hughes triple combo, dual-induction logs, and always runs formation tests to make sure it has virgin pressures in shallow zones.
Third-party Fesco Ltd. certifies five-point production tests of Magnus’s wells.
Omni Laboratories Inc. processes cores on all wells and turns around results on gas samples in 3-4 days from its Corpus Christi office.
The typical TD is 4,000 ft and most require about a week to drill, from spud to TD, Ehrman said. The completion takes about another week, provided there is a meter in place (to sell into). Otherwise, the wait on a meter can be 3-4 weeks.
Magnus spud the vertical Dohmann A-3 well on the North Dohmann lease on Aug. 25 and reached TD on Sept. 2 (Fig. 1). The well logged 86 ft of pay in the Frio sand series. The company set 41/2-in. casing and dual-completed the well as a gas well on Sept. 9.
The well is number 26 out of the 50-well program, upon which Magnus received the new field designation from the Texas Railroad Commission.
The company recently completed the Loest No. 2 well, which encountered numerous Frio sands. The Loest No. 2 well is a single completion in a 4-ft section of pay sand and is producing more than 330 MMcfd from a single completion in a 27/8-in. slim-hole completion.
Production is sold into DCP (Duke–Chevron-Phillips) interstate pipeline system on the spot market.
East McFadden project
Ehrman told OGJ the company’s next focus is a 5-year project covering 4,860 acres in Victoria County, Tex. This will include new drilling as well as recompleting old wells in the East McFadden field, adding 20 electric submersible pumps.
Weatherford installed two ESP units in old wells during the summer, working out of its Midland office. Ehrman said the wells produced 25 bo/d, up from 4 bo/d, on 700 bbl of fluid.
The company plans additional drilling based on vintage seismic, including 79 wells to drill to an average TD of 6,500 ft. There are 31 “proven and productive” sands to 6,900 ft, including a package of 5,600-ft reservoir sands.
Magnus also has four saltwater disposal units about to go online.