Australia
Magellan Petroleum Corp., Portland, Me., is in the midst of rationalizing its Amadeus basin assets in central Australia and plans to renew its exploratory program there.
Magellan will acquire Santos Ltd. entities' interests in Palm Valley and Dingo gas fields and transfer Magellan's Mereenie oil and gas field interest to Santos, retroactive to July 1, 2011. Santos will buy the remaining 25.65 petajoules of Palm Valley gas reserves from Magellan over 17 years.
The gas sales contract is subject to completion of the asset swap. The contract will start on the later of the first delivery of gas by Mereenie to a new gas customer and Jan. 16, 2012, which is when the existing gas sales agreement for Palm Valley field expires. The price will be the weighted average of the prices obtained for all gas sold by Santos entities from Mereenie field in the relevant contract year.
Mereenie and Palm Valley were discovered in the mid-1960s with main reserves being in the Ordovician Pacoota reservoir just below the Horn Valley formation now being explored. Reserves are in the Cambrian Arumbera formation at Dingo, found in the 1980s.
Azerbaijan
A unit of Greenfields Petroleum Corp., Calgary, logged 422 ft and 193 ft of behind-pipe oil pay thickness in the first two of its 36 planned recompletions in Gum Deniz oil field in the Caspian Sea just off Baku, Azerbaijan.
Cased hole logs confirmed 422 ft of pay in the X, IX, VIII, and VI zones at Well 464 and 193 ft of pay in the IX, VIII, and VI zones at Well 449. Completion tests will be carried out in the next 30 days.
In Well 464, zones X and IX are to be tested together, and zones VIII and VI will be evaluated later. In Well 449, Zone IX will be completed, and zones VIII and VI will be evaluated at a later date.
When two new western-style workover rigs arrive in late 2011 and early 2012, Greenfields intends to proceed with 24 recompletions in the subsequent 12-month period in Gum Deniz oil field and Bahar gas field (OGJ Online, July 20, 2011).
Brazil
Gran Tierra Energy Inc., Calgary, has taken farmouts from Statoil do Brasil Ltda. to earn working interests in two blocks in the Camamu-Almada basin off Brazil.
Gran Tierra will earn a 10% working interest in the BM-CAL-7 block operated by Petrobras and a 15% working interest in BM-CAL-10 operated by Statoil, subject to ANP approval. An exploratory well is to be drilled on BM-CAL-10 in late 2011.
BM-CAL-7 covers 336,558 acres and BM-CAL-10 415,137 acres in 400-2,800 m of water. Multiple leads and prospects have been identified on the blocks.
Camamu-Almada is immediately south and offshore from the onshore Reconcavo basin, where Gran Tierra Energy operates four blocks and is near the start of development and exploratory drilling.
Chile
Chile's state ENAP has chosen GeoPark Holdings Ltd. as its partner to explore three oil and gas blocks on Tierra del Fuego.
GeoPark has been awarded 50% participation in the Campanario and Flamenco blocks and a 60% stake in the Isla Norte block.
GeoPark will operate the three blocks and carry ENAP during the initial exploration period. ENAP and GeoPark have jointly requested from the Chilean government a special petroleum operations contract with respect to each of the blocks.
GeoPark had proposed to invest at least $101 million over 3 years and execute an aggressive exploration and development program on the blocks, which total 414,400 acres and are geologically contiguous with the Fell block, where GeoPark has successfully built a production and reserve base.
Colombia
A unit of Cia. Espanola de Petroleos SA has a heavy oil discovery in an Upper Mirador reservoir at the Melero-1 exploratory well on the Garibay block in the Llanos basin of Colombia. The well is suspended for long-term tests.
Gran Tierra Energy Inc., Calgary, a 50-50 partner with CEPSA in the block, said the Melero-1 went to 9,748 ft measured depth, 9,561 ft true vertical depth, and averaged 922 b/d of 16.8° gravity oil with 0.3% water cut on four drillstem tests in an interpreted 16 ft of net pay.
Elsewhere on the block, the firms spud the Jilguero-2 appraisal well at the Jilguero oil discovery. The joint venture is shooting a further 80 sq km of 3D seismic to help evaluate other structures identified on 2D seismic on the block.
Indonesia
Total SA took farmouts from Talisman Energy Inc. on three deepwater exploratory blocks in the South Makassar basin in Indonesia.
Post-farmout interests in the Makassar Strait blocks are: Sageri PSC, Talisman 50% and Total 50%; South Sageri PSC Talisman and Total 35% each and Thailand's PTTEP 30%; and Sadang PSC, Talisman and PTTEP 40% each and Total 20%.
The Talisman-operated blocks total 10,693 sq km in 400-2,000 m of water. The exploratory period work commitments include shooting 2D and 3D seismic and drilling two exploratory wells. The first well is planned to be spudded on the Sageri block by the end of 2011.
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