Discoveries boost output on Fell Block in Chile

GeoPark Holdings Ltd., Buenos Aires, said it is completing its $57 million 2008 capital program on the 440,000-acre Fell Block in southern Chile’s Austral basin.

GeoPark said it ended 2008 with production of 6,250 boed. Earlier this year the company said more than 90% of its output, 77% of which is gas, comes from the Fell Block.

The company drilled 14 wells, shot 3D seismic, expanded pipelines, and placed nine wells on production, including four new field discoveries. Most recent to go on production are Aonikenk oil field and Manekenk gas field.

The Manekenk discovery well tested at 7.3 MMcfd of gas, 102 b/d of condensate, and 20 b/d of water, natural, from Cretaceous Springhill at 2,951 m.

Three wells recently drilled and cased will be tested in the first quarter of 2009.

GeoPark began production on the Fell Block in 2006 from Molino, Ovejero, and Nika gas-condensate fields.

Otto Energy Ltd., Perth, finalized a farmout from Oromin Explorations Ltd., Vancouver, BC, on the 7,694-sq km Santa Rosa Block in Argentina’s Cuyana basin.

Oromin approved the exploration work program and $4.1 million budget and plans to start drilling in the first half of 2009. The block lies east of the basin’s oil and gas producing area.

Otto is to obtain a 32.48% indirect working interest by funding the first $1.4 million of spending. It will contribute its pro-rata share thereafter.

Italy’s Eni acquired rights to six exploration licenses totaling more than 8,000 sq km in Gabon.

The D3 and D4 blocks are in shallow water in the North Gabonese basin, and the E2, F3, F4, and F7 blocks are in the country’s onshore basin.

The licenses have 4-year initial terms followed by 4-year and 3-year options.

Italy’s Eni SpA will conduct third phase development of Darkhowain oil field north of Abadan in southwestern Iran, said press reports that quoted a top National Iranian Oil Co. official.

With third-phase development, Darkowain’s output will rise to 160,000 b/d from 100,000 b/d at present, the official said (see map, OGJ, Jan. 7, 2008, p. 34). Eni, which operates the field’s second-phase expansion, hadn’t confirmed the report on its web site by Jan. 9.

NIOC discovered the field in 1978 and began developing it in 1997.

Tethys Petroleum Ltd. assumed operation of the East Olimtoi-09 exploration well on the Bokhtar production sharing contract area in Tajikistan. Projected to 12,467 ft, the well has been drilled to 6,605 ft.

The well is to test a structure mapped on the edge of a salt dome in the Kulob megasynclinorium in the southeastern part of the PSC just north of the Panj River that forms the border with Afghanistan. It targets oil and gas in the Lower Paleogene Bukhara and Alay formations that are productive nearby.

Tethys also tested gas at rates estimated at as much as 2.8 MMcfd on a 30/64-in. choke with 588 psig flowing tubinghead pressure from the No. 22 well in Khoja Sartez gas-condensate field.

The Kashtan Petroleum Joint Venture plans to further redevelop Lelyaki oil field in Ukraine in 2009.

The most recent work involved Well 307, drilled to 1,960 m. It encountered oil-saturated porous zones of 5 m measured depth in the lowermost K zone and 8.6 m MD in the P1+P2 dolomite zone. Completed in the K zone, it is averaging 284 b/d of oil, of which 128 b/d is net to participant Shelton Canada Corp., Calgary.

Shelton’s net production from Lelyaki exceeds 400 b/d of 41° gravity oil. Wells 304A and 308 are to be drilled next, and four other suspended wells are to be reentered and sidetracked in 2009 at a much lower capital cost than new drilling.

Contact Exploration Inc., Calgary, placed the N-78-2328 well at New Brunswick’s Stoney Creek field on production at 30 b/d of oil at a drawdown estimated at 15% of near-virgin pressure.

The well, on which the first modern frac in the field was run on Dec. 9-10, 2008, was swabbed at rates as high as 200 b/d after the frac.

Contact, with 100% interest, drilled the well to TD 1,115 m through the Hiram Brook, Fredericks Brook, and Dawson Settlement formations. It ran fracs on two zones in Dawson Settlement.

The frac jobs transported 10 tonnes of sand each to the intervals at 878-899 m and 864-871 m.

Gas indications were recorded while drilling eight intervals in the Hiram Brook formation of the Upper Albert Group.

Gastem, Montreal, and private Canbriam Energy Inc., Calgary, took a farmout from an undisclosed farmor on 92,104 acres of Mundiregina permits in Quebec’s St. Lawrence Lowlands.

Gastem may earn a 17% interest and Canbriam 68%. The seller will maintain a 15% carried interest.

The Mundiregina permits are in the Ordovician Utica shale fairway southwest of Gastem’s Yamaska permit, where two horizontal wells are being flow-tested. Gastem and Cambrian committed to shoot seismic and drill six wells by the end of 2010.

TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Co., Houston, launched a 300-block multiclient 3D seismic survey in the eastern Gulf of Mexico’s DeSoto Canyon area off Pensacola, Fla.

The MV BOS Arctic has shot 25% of the Hernando project and is scheduled to complete the acquisition in May of 2009. Participants will receive fast-track data covering 1,100 sq km of the 6,900 sq km area before the March 2009 lease sale.

Project deliverables will include prestack time migration and anisotropic Kirchhoff and wave equation prestack depth migrations. Gravity data are also being collected.

CREDO Petroleum Corp., Denver, gauged a flowing deeper pool oil and gas discovery from Siluro-Devonian Hunton in Major County, Okla.

Logs and other data indicate that the Ball 1-18 Anadarko basin shelf well is commercial in the Chester, Mississippian, and Hunton formations. The Hunton flowed at the rate of 535 b/d of oil and 1-2 MMcfd of gas from 13 ft of highly porous and permeable dolomite. Shut-in casing and tubing pressure are 2,600 psi. TD is 9,750 ft.

The well also has more than 150 of Mississippian pay and 35 ft of Chester pay. Credo is operator with 50% working interest. It will take 10-12 wells to fully develop the company’s 1,280 gross acre Pool-Proffitt prospect in the Hunton, Mississippian, Chester, Inola, and Red Fork formations.

Panhandle

An unconventional gas resource play in Pennsylvanian Atoka shale is emerging in the Anadarko basin in the Texas Panhandle and far western Oklahoma.

Continental Resources Inc., Enid, Okla., said it had 34,000 net acres in the play in mid-December 2008. The play stretches about 85 miles from Peek field in Ellis County, Okla., west to Lipscomb, Ochiltree, eastern Hansford, northeastern Roberts, and northernmost Hemphill counties in the Texas Panhandle.

Continental said EOG Resources Inc., Houston, has completed 26 horizontal wells at as much as 7 MMcfd/well and attributed 400 bcf of Atoka recovery potential to its 60,000 net acres.