Shale gas acreage, European database draw interest

Companies are seeking permits for shale gas prospects in southeast France in Languedoc Roussillon, the Cevennes mountains region, and the Savoie area near the Swiss border.

Total E&P France SA-Devon, Mouvoil SA, Bridgeoil Ltd., and Diamoco Energy are among the firms competing for the Ales, Bassin d’Ales, Plaine d’Ales, and Montelimar permits. They are competing with the Cevennes and Navacelles permits requested in 2008 by Egdon Resources Ltd. (also being eyed by Eagle Energy Ltd. and YCI Resources Ltd.) and by Cevennes Petroleum Development Ltd.

French authorities plan to assess the competing proposals for overlapping shale acreage onshore north of the Gulf of Lion and make an award in October 2009.

“There is much shale gas in France,” said Francois Laurant, in charge of shale gas at Institut Francais du Petrole. “It has been seeping for centuries around the town of Grenoble in midsoutheastern France. But the disputed areas hold black shale in shallower ground than elsewhere in France like the Paris basin,” he added.

East Paris Petroleum Development Ltd. requested the Moselle permit in Lorraine, in northeastern France, targeting both shale gas and coalbed methane.

Charles Lamiraux, chief geologist at France’s Environment and Energy Ministry in charge of exploration, said while targeting shale gas, companies could well find conventional gas and heavy oil.

Shale gas prospects abound

France is not the only country in Europe in which shale gas is arousing interest.

The Potsdam-based GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences designed and coordinated what it describes as the “first and biggest and most comprehensive” study on shale gas in Europe.

Brian Horsfield, one of the main collaborators in the Gash (German for shale gas) study, said the study was an interdisciplinary reservoir and regional-scale research project coupled with black shale database being carried out by a multinational expert task force that includes Geoforschungszentrum GFZ, IFP, and Dutch geosciences organization TNO.

The project started May 1 and will initially run for 3 years with a 6-month reporting of database construction and research advances, a program directly connected with exploration and production issues, the evaluation of US and European basins, Horsfield said.

Gas in place and producibility are the focus of the research activities with physical, chemical, and biological processes contributing to shale gas formation being examined by experiment, monitoring, surveying, and modeling.

Natural occurrences include but are not limited to Alum shale (Sweden), Posidonia shale (Germany), Lower Carboniferous (Germany and Netherlands), and Barnett shale and Marcellus shale (both examples from the US).

The data base spans 20 European countries and is being acquired in collaboration with geological surveys and selected universities.

Ural Oil & Gas LLP shot 3D seismic earlier this year on the structure that contains its 2005 Zhaik presalt oil and gas-condensate discovery in the 593,000-acre Federovskoye block along northern Kazakhstan’s border with Russia.

The Caspian unit of MOL Hungarian Oil & Gas Co., operating shareholder with 27.5% interest in Ural Oil, said the Zhaik-1 well went to 5,844 m and recovered oil and gas-condensate from presalt Lower Permian and Carboniferous carbonates. The liquid hydrocarbons were 46° gravity and had no measurable sulfur or hydrogen sulfide.

The hole’s lowermost 400 m were drilled with slimhole technology, and only small amounts of fluids were recovered. MOL said.

Other block interests are SINOPEC International’s First International Oil Co. subsidiary 22.5% and Exploration Ventures Ltd. 50%.

First International Oil in 1999 called the Zhaik structure, in the Precaspian basin near Kazakhstan’s supergiant Karachaganak oil and gas-condensate field, a potential giant.

Circle Oil PLC will complete the CGD-10 exploration well on the Sebou permit in Morocco’s Rharb basin as a potential gas producer.

The well tested 3.9 MMscfd from the Tertiary Lower Guebbas sequence on a 24/64 in. choke from 3.3 m of net gas pay perforated at 889.3-897 m. A secondary target at 847.5- 854.5 m with 2 m of calculated net gas pay is to be tested later.

The rig will start drilling the last well of the planned six-well drilling program on the permit northeast of Rabat. Thus far, Circle Oil has had four discoveries and good indications of gas in DRJ-6 well, to be tested later.

PetroTel Inc., Plano, Tex., was awarded rights to 2,378 sq km Block 17 in northernmost Oman, press reports said.

The 3-year exploration and production agreement covers the block in northern Oman near the Straits of Hormuz.

White Nile Petroleum Operating Co. has discovered large volumes of dry gas in Sudan’s Block 8, southeast of Khartoum, press reports said.

WNPOC is a 50-50 combine of Sudan National Petroleum Corp. and Malaysia’s Petronas, which said the finds came at the Hosan and Tawakul wells. They estimated the potential at 16-20 tcf but said the finds are not yet proven to be commercial.

The country’s only other gas discovery came in 2005 by a joint venture of China National Petroleum Corp. and Sudapet in Block 6 in the Heglig area of southwestern Sudan. It is to be used to supply a 400 Mw power plant.

Standard Steam Trust LLC, private Denver operator, has drilled five of 22 planned temperature gradient drilling sites in an undisclosed known geothermal resource area of Idaho, said U.S. Energy Corp., Riverton, Wyo.

Results show an increase in water temperature of 5-7° F./100 ft, indicating that commercial water temperatures may be found at 3,500-5,000 ft, said U.S. Energy, which owns 25% of SST. Drilling of the 500-ft holes is to run through midsummer 2009.

SST owns 73,500 acres of federal, state, and fee leases with geothermal potential in six prospect areas in three states. Its goal is to hold 140,000 net acres by the end of 2009.

East

Common Resources LLC, Houston, let a contract to MicroSeismic Inc., Houston, to deploy a microseismic buried array in the Haynesville shale gas play.

The system will provide microseismic monitoring, mapping, and analysis for hydraulic fracturing of multiple wells. It will enable Common Resources to monitor the primary, secondary, and tertiary activity, in a variety of reservoir conditions, for its Haynesville wells during the next few years.

The system applies a proprietary analysis to seismic data collected by MSI’s buried array as the reservoir undergoes fracture stimulation. It does not require dedicated monitoring wells. MicroSeismic Inc. has installed more than 75 sq miles of permanent, near-surface arrays since late 2008.