Repsol YPF confirms large gas find off Venezuela

Sept. 28, 2009
Repsol YPF SA confirmed earlier reports that it has made a giant natural gas discovery off Venezuela.

Repsol YPF SA confirmed earlier reports that it has made a giant natural gas discovery off Venezuela.

The company, in an exploration partnership with Italy's Eni SPA, said the Perla-1 well could hold 7-8 tcf of gas in place and said that further tests would be needed to determine the discovery's exact size.

The gas was discovered on a 924 sq km exploration block called Cardon IV, which the Spanish firm began exploring in 2006 along with Venezuela's state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA).

The block was one of three that drew bids in the October 2005 Rafael Urdaneta Phase A license round in the eastern Gulf of Venezuela. Three more blocks drew bids in Phase B in November 2005.

Repsol YPF and Eni would have stakes of 32.5% each in future production, while PDVSA would get 35%.

Earlier, the Spanish daily El Pais newspaper quoted Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez as saying that 1.5-2 tcf of the 7-8 tcf could be recoverable—a figure that Repsol YPF could not confirm. Repsol said the areal extent could be as large as 33 sq km.

In any case, Chavez saw the find as boosting Venezuela into the top tier of world gas producers, saying, "At the rate the certified scientific discoveries are going, Venezuela's gas reserves will place it among the top five in the world."

Chavez was in Spain as part of a state tour of European and Asian countries, which has included Iran, Turkmenistan, and Russia, where several agreements were signed for the developments of Venezuela's Orinoco heavy oil belt.

Regarding Perla, Repsol also declined to give the formation or depth or to say whether the gas contains liquids. It said the discovery is the company's largest ever and the largest nonassociated gas find in Venezuela.

Perla is about 30 km northwest of PDVSA's Paraguana Peninsula refinery complex, the world's largest. Gas for the complex comes from Lake Maracaibo and from eastern Venezuela the new Interconexion Centro Occidente pipeline.

Perla, 130 miles northeast of Maracaibo city, is also 180 miles east of Chevron-operated Riohacha, Ballena, and Chuchupa dry gas fields in the Caribbean as far as 32 km off Colombia's Guajira Peninsula (see map, OGJ, July 22, 1974, p. 28). Those reservoirs are at about 6,000 ft.

Mississippi

Mainland Resources Inc., Houston, and American Exploration Corp., Calgary, plan to explore for gas in deep Jurassic Haynesville shale on 13,500 net acres northeast of Natchez in Jefferson County, Miss.

Haynesville shale has similar attributes and is eight times thicker in the project area than in northwestern Louisiana based on engineering analysis of data from a Chevron well drilled on the acreage in the 1980s.

The companies have remapped the entire project area with reprocessed seismic data.

Mainland Resources has participated in the drilling and completion of two Haynesville shale wells in DeSoto Parish, La., and expects to complete a third well in a few months.

Mainland Resources will be operator and pay 80% of initial well costs to earn a 51% working interest in the total project area. It was not clear when drilling might start.

Griffin & Griffin Exploration LLC, Jackson, Miss., plans drilling to further develop Belmont Lake oil and gas field in Wilkinson County, Miss.

The field, on 142 acres in the Mississippi River flood plain, averages 130 b/d of 29° gravity oil from two vertical wells on gas lift from Oligocene Frio to a tank battery above flood stage. The river tends to flood between January and May, but the wells can produce when submerged.

The first new well could spud as soon as Sept. 21, 2009, said 8% working interest holder Cheetah Oil & Gas Ltd., Nanaimo, BC.

One or two development wells, including a horizontal well, in the north half of the field and an exploration well in the south half could hike production, Cheetah said. Cumulative production is more than 30,000 bbl.

Texas

Gulf Coast

Texon Petroleum Ltd., Brisbane, will run production casing at the fourth well on its Leighton prospect in McMullen County, Tex., after the well had oil and gas shows in Cretaceous Olmos. TD is 9,000 ft.

Wireline logs at Tyler Ranch-3 indicate similar reservoir properties to the Peeler-1, Tyler Ranch-1, and Tyler Ranch-2 wells.

Texon contracted a larger rig to drill Tyler Ranch-4 in early October to target Olmos at 8,500 ft and Eagle Ford shale at 11,000 ft. Working interests are Texon 70% and Global Petroleum Ltd. and Excellong Inc. 15% each.

Texon holds 1,280 acres at Leighton and a 100% working interest in 1,434 acres at Mosman, 4 km southwest, and is seeking partners for the first Mosman well as early as first quarter 2010 to test Olmos and Eagle Ford.

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