Australia
Central Petroleum Ltd., Perth, updated seismic activity on its permits in the Amadeus and Pedirka basins in Australia’s Northern Territory.
Terrex Seismic shot 100 line-km of 2D seismic in the Stone Plains prospect area on EP 112 and is preparing lines at the Johnstone prospect in EP 115.
The current 1,150-line-km program is designed to firm up as drill ready prospects the Johnstone, Guinevere, Vivienne, and Madigan oil prospects and the Magee gas-condensate-helium prospect and provide early reconnaissance data over a number of leads. Blamore, Simpson, Waterhouse, Mount Kitty, and Ooraminna are ready to drill, and drillsites have been chosen.
A rig is secured to drill at least two wells, Blamore or Simpson and Mount Kitty, and the contract has options for five conventional wells and three coalbed methane wells.
Quebec
Junex Inc., Montreal, said it conducted the first hydraulic frac job in a shale formation in Quebec in mid-December 2007 at the Becancour-8 well in the St. Lawrence Lowlands.
The well is flowing back natural gas and frac fluids from the Ordovician Utica shale, and it will be several months before final results are known, the company said.
Junex signed an agreement in July 2006 with a large US independent gas producing company for the development of shale gas in the Becancour-Champlain region. That deal targeted the evaluation of gas potential of the shale section on four blocks of permits covering 143,395 acres held by Junex between Quebec City and Montreal.
The partner analyzed 34.15 m of Utica shale core cut from Junex’s Becancour-8 well, and based on the results advised Junex that it would proceed with a pilot project, the first step of which was to frac the well.
Kansas
Imperial American Oil Corp., private Wichita independent, gauged an apparent Pennsylvanian Lansing oil discovery on a 3D seismic anomaly in Norton County on the Central Kansas uplift 12 miles west of Norton, Kan.
The Ella Mae 34-1, in 34-2s-24w, several miles from previous Lansing production, recovered 2,740 ft of clean oil and no water on a Lansing C drillstem test. Shut-in pressure was more than 1,165 psi. TD is 3,700 ft.
Such anomalies typically support two to three wells on 40-acre spacing. The company has shot 10 sq miles of seismic and plans to shoot as much as 120,000 in the next few years.