Exploration/Development Briefs

Beach Energy Ltd., Adelaide, has gauged gas-condensate at promising rates early in extended tests at the Canunda-1 discovery in Australia's Cooper basin, said 50% partner Drillsearch Energy Ltd., Sydney. The well is producing 3 MMscfd of gas with a gas-oil ratio of 180 bbls/MMscf on a 22/64-in. choke. Canunda is in South Australia northwest of Moomba.

Initial extended production testing began in mid-2010, and due to high condensate production rates the 10-day test was choked back in view of storage and transportation constraints. Over the 10-day testing period of the upper zone, the Canunda well produced more than 2,500 bbl of 62° gravity condensate.

The new production completion is designed to accommodate the very high liquid content gas. This extended production test is designed to better determine the overall extent and potential reserves and a field development plan.

Drillsearch in December 2010 estimated a contingent resource for Canunda-1 of 2.8 million boe, including 930,000 bbl of condensate and 46,000 tonnes of LPG. Beach has previously declared Canunda commercial and carries it as 2P reserves. Drillsearch is reviewing Canunda for reclassification as reserves as part of joint venture consideration of an overall development plan for PEL 106B.

As part of the PEL 106B pending development, Gaffney Cline & Associates is reviewing the Canunda, Udacha, Brownlow, and Middleton discoveries for reclassification to reserves status as justified for development.

Bahamas Petroleum Co. PLC signed a letter of award with CGGVeritas for a 3D seismic survey of at least 1,500 sq km on BPC's Southern license area in Atlantic off the Bahamas.

Contract details are to be finalized this month, and shooting will begin in May 2011. The Veritas Viking vessel will acquire the seismic using 10 streamers incorporating BroadSeis technology for the first time in the Americas. Fast-track interpretation is planned. The licenses lie between Andros Island and Cuba (see map, OGJ, July 13, 2009, p. 34).

Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp., Toronto, acquired 50% of the interests of Maurel & Prom, Paris, in five onshore blocks in Colombia. The alliance covers the Sabanero, Muisca, SSJN-9, CPO-17, and COR-15 blocks. The companies will share 100% participation three blocks: Sabanero in Meta Department, Muisca in Boyaca and Cundinamarca departments, and COR-15 in Boyaca Department.

They will share 50% participation in two blocks, SSJN-9 in Bolivar, Cesar, and Magdalena departments and CPO-17 in Meta Department. Hocol operates both of those blocks.

Sabanero and CPO-17 in the Llanos basin near Rubiales and Quifa oil fields. Muisca, on which the Nemqueteba prospect will be drilled by mid-2011, covers 232,000 ha in the Eastern Cordillera basin 70 km from Bogota. COR-15 surrounds Bolivar heavy oil field. SSJN-9 covers 264,800 ha 60 km east of La Creciente gas field.

Lundin Petroleum AB, Stockholm, has been awarded the 8,018 sq km Gurita production sharing contract in the Natuna Sea off Indonesia.

The PSC is to be signed this month. The company will shoot 400 sq km of 3D seismic in the first 3-year exploration phase on the block, adjacent to the main Natuna Sea oil and gas producing area.

India's DGH has awarded the AA-ONN-2010/2 exploration block in the Assam-Arakan basin to a combine of Oil India Ltd., operator with 40% interest, Oil & Natural Gas Corp. 30%, Gas Authority of India Ltd. 20%, and East West Petroleum Corp., Vancouver, BC, 10%.

The 400 sq km block in the Karbi Anglong District has a primary term of 5 years. East West cited its management's expertise in unconventional plays such as shale resource plays. East West Petroleum said the Assam-Arakan basin produces 95,000 b/d of oil equivalent. The basin has 118 oil and gas fields with an estimated 36 billion bbl of original oil in place.

ShaMaran Petroleum Corp., Vancouver, BC, has spud the Pulkhana-9 appraisal-development well projected to 2,700 m in Pulkhana field in Iraqi Kurdistan south of Kirkuk.

The well is designed to appraise the proven Euphrates/Jaddala and Shiranish oil reservoirs and to appraise possible upside in the Jeribe and Lower Jaddala formations.

ShaMaran is tendering for a workover rig for the planned third quarter workover of Pulkhana-8 and is progressing with a feasibility study and design for the Pulkhana early production facility to be installed by the end of 2011. The company received ministry of natural resources approval for the Pulkhana-10 appraisal well.

Meanwhile, the company completed its obligations under an option agreement on adjacent Block K42 and will apply to the Kurdistan Regional Government to convert the option agreement to a production sharing contract.

Providence Resources PLC, Dublin, has let a contract with Polarcus Ltd. for a 3D seismic survey in the Porcupine basin off Ireland.

Acquisition of the 200 sq km survey is planned to start in the third quarter of 2011 and is expected to take 15 days.

Providence operates frontier exploration license 4/08 with 32% interest on behalf of its partners Chrysaor E&P Ireland Ltd. 60% and Sosina Exploration Ltd. 8%.

TAG Oil Ltd., Vancouver, BC, said its Sidewinder-3 exploratory well has encountered 50 ft of net oil and gas bearing sand 1.1 km south of the company's Sidewinder 1 and 2 discoveries on PEP 38748 in the Taranaki basin.

The company drilled Sidewinder-3 to a total depth of 7,087 ft. It showed that the Miocene Mount Messenger reservoir sands extend greatly to the south of the original Sidewinder discoveries and that hydrocarbons appear to have migrated into all potentially producing sands encountered to date.

The size and scope of the discovery area is potentially much larger than originally anticipated, the company said, adding that it will have a better picture of the size of the discoveries once it has tested all three.

Meanwhile, TAG Oil will drill the Sidewinder-4 exploratory well targeting Mount Messenger 1 km east of Sidewinder-1.

A group led by CC Energy Development SAL found heavy oil in several formations at the Saiwan East-7 well on Block 4 in eastern Oman.

SE-7 was drilled to a total depth of 1,890 m and found several intervals of heavy oil but established no flow. CCED temporarily suspended the well for possible testing and further study, said interest owner Tethys Oil AB, Stockholm.

The main target was to test the presence of oil in the Neoproterozoic Khufai section in the southern part of the Saiwan East structure. The well identified a more than 90-m thick column of intermittent heavy oil saturation in the upper parts of the Khufai. A limited test program was run using a wireline MDT tool, but no flow was established.

As expected, heavy oil was also encountered in the shallower Neoprpterozoic Buah and Cambrian Miqrat and Amin formations.

The rig moved to drill the Farha South-7 well on Block 3, an appraisal well designed to test for the presence of oil in the Lower Al Bashir section near the Farha South-3 well in Farha South field. The drill site is located 425 m southwest of FS-3, drilled in early 2009.

Amerisur Resources PLC has commissioned a 12,800 line-km aeromagnetic survey over its 8,000 sq km San Pedro block in Paraguay and the Parana basin to the border with Brazil.

This survey is designed to map the general development of the sedimentary series in the basin and give detailed data in the San Pedro block that will allow the company to refine the structural forms and confirm the sourcing pathways to the block that were indicated by the company's previous geochemical work. Fugro Geophysical plans to mobilize the survey in April and complete it in July.

An operating group hopes to bring to Alaska's Cook Inlet the first drilling rig to have operated there in more than 16 years and keep it working for 5 years.

Alaska Industrial Development & Export Authority unanimously approved a resolution that allows the authority to join an operating venture with Kenai Offshore Ventures, a subsidiary of Buccaneer Energy Ltd., Sydney, and Ezion Holdings Ltd., Singapore.

AIDEA, chartered to work both public and private sector issues to create jobs, tax bases, and opportunities in Alaska, hopes to turn a profit from its involvement.

Buccaneer will contract with KOV to drill its prospects in the Cook Inlet. Consulting engineers have certified 12.7 million bbl of oil equivalent in Buccaneer's 100% owned Southern Cross Unit and certified an additional combined 60.6 million boe in the Southern Cross and North West Cook Inlet Units.

FX Energy Inc., Salt Lake City, will reenter and deepen a well in northwestern Montana and take samples from the Lodgepole, Bakken, Nisku, and Duperow formations at 4,400-5,500 ft.

The company, which plans to plug the well and keep its findings confidential, said the deepening is the first step in evaluating the potential of the Bakken trend on its holdings. FX Energy hopes to expand its position and is talking with other companies.

The well is in Cut Bank field, which lies in Glacier, Pondera, and Toole counties, Mont. Deepening from the well's current depth of 3,216 ft will help the company evaluate the hydrocarbon and carbon dioxide potential on its northern Montana acreage.

Antero Resources LLC, Denver, has 128 MMcfd of gross operated production from 34 horizontal Marcellus shale wells and estimates that a further 20 MMcfd from 2 wells awaits pipeline and facilities completion. Net production is 90 MMcfd. The company is operating five rigs in the play, all in northern West Virginia.

Antero expects to turn the two other wells to sales by June when the Jarvisville Lateral is completed as a southerly extension to the Bobcat Lateral, formerly known as the Clarksburg Lateral, and 46 MMcfd of compression capacity is commissioned at a new third party owned compressor station.

The Tichenal Lateral, a southerly extension to the Jarvisville Lateral, is expected to be completed in July which will add another 46 MMcfd of compression capacity to the system.

Antero has nine more horizontal Marcellus wells either completing or waiting on completion. Antero has 169,000 net acres in the Marcellus shale play, of which only 8% was classified as proved at yearend 2010.

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