Area Drilling

Aug. 13, 2001
Gastar Exploration Ltd., Mount Pleasant, Mich., and an undisclosed partner bid successfully for 7 onshore coalbed methane exploration licenses totaling 2 million acres in the Gippsland basin in Victoria State.

Australia

Gastar Exploration Ltd., Mount Pleasant, Mich., and an undisclosed partner bid successfully for 7 onshore coalbed methane exploration licenses totaling 2 million acres in the Gippsland basin in Victoria State. Pilot drilling could start later this year.

Gastar, which already held 2 million acre PEL 238 in New South Wales, said its project area in the Latrobe Valley covers almost all of the 20% of the basin located onshore.

No organized attempt has been made to produce gas from the Gippsland coals, but oil and gas wells have encountered gas in the seams. The basin's Tertiary-age coals have total thicknessess of as much as 1,000 ft at 3,000 ft or shallower with individual seams several hundred feet thick, Gastar said.

India

Cairn Energy PLC, London, plans to test a third discovery on Block KG-DWN-98/2 in the Krishna-Godavari basin off Andhra Pradesh.

The DWN-P-1 well on Prospect P 121/2 km northwest of the R gas discovery cut two hydrocarbon-bearing units. TD is 2,585 m.

The first unit is a gas cap with thin oil leg. The deeper second unit had a thin gas column and an oil column estimated at 75 m. The reservoirs are thinly laminated sands. Further appraisal will be required, Cairn said.

Elsewhere Cairn abandoned efforts at Prospect 6 on Block KG-OS/6 after several failed attempts to drill through shallow seabed water flows and a gas reservoir at 600 m. It hopes to resume drilling next year.

Nigeria

The minister of solid minerals development said Conoco Inc. committed to spend at least $5 million on a year's seismic surveys of Nigeria's entire bitumen belt, press reports indicated.

If development feasibility is indicated, Conoco would bid for block allocations, the minister said.

Nigerian literature indicates that sizable bitumen deposits have been identified at outcrop in the eastern Benin basin in southwestern Nigeria.

Russia

Production began at 1,000 b/d of 40° gravity oil from one well in South Tarasovskoye field on the Urabor Yakhinsky Block in western Siberia, said the Russian arm of Benton Oil & Gas Co., Houston.

The block's first production, this well cut a 365-ft gross oil column in multiple productive intervals. TD is 9,535 ft.

The field was discovered earlier this year on adjacent Purneftegas acreage. Geoilbent, a joint venture in which Benton holds 34% interest, is drilling two development wells and an appraisal-extension well.