Galilee completes pilot drilling in Glenaras CSG program

Galilee Energy Ltd., Brisbane, has completed the sixth and final well of the 2022 drilling program in the Glenaras multi-well coal seam gas pilot project in permit ATP 2019 in the Galilee basin of central east Queensland.

The sixth well (Glenaras-29) was drilled to a total depth of 1,039 m intersecting all target Betts Creek coal seams. A total of 27 m of net coal has now been confirmed containing strong gas shows.

The completion marks the end of the drilling component of the overall Glenaras program.

Galilee took 100% ownership of the Glenaras gas project in late 2015 and has been working to prove up the potential of the coal seams as a major gas supply in the region.

The project has independently derived and certified contingent resources within the Betts Creek coals of 308 petajoules (1C), 2,508 petajoules (2C), and 5,314 petajoules (3C). The focus has been to convert contingent resources to reserves.

The drilling program has been designed to accelerate depressurization of the coals and initiate gas desorption.

Earlier pilot wells were fracture stimulated which opened underlying sandstones to production. The pilots produced high water rates, but a lot of the water came from the sandstones and thus the coals were not sufficiently de-pressured to achieve desorption and good subsequent gas production.

The new approach in 2022 has been to drill the pilot wells to a depth of 1,000 m without penetrating the sandstone units, case them to the top of the coal section and leave the Betts Creek beds as an open-hole completion.

All existing wells will now be brought back online over the coming weeks with work on the surface infrastructure expected to be completed by end July 2022, the company said.