Arizona Oil & Gas Inc., private Bisbee, Ariz., operator, said its affiliates have acquired more than 150,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Cochise County where geologic work and remote sensing indicate a complex of major reef structures.
The company said it plans a drilling program to test the Devonian in late 2012 or early 2013. The Devonian section in the Pedregosa basin includes the Morenci, Portal, Swisshelm, and Percha formations.
Exploration is sparse in the basin, which has not produced commercial hydrocarbons in Arizona or New Mexico. The basin extends into northern Mexico.
The former Phillips Petroleum Co. drilled three stratigraphic tests in Cochise County in 1981-82 to total depths of 7,058 ft, 8,513 ft, and 10,561 ft in exploring a possible extension of the Rocky Mountain Overthrust Belt. All bottomed in Cretaceous as dry holes.
The Phillips A1 Tombstone State, in 14-20s-23e, had a Kelly bushing elevation of 4,790 ft. It drilled through Cretaceous into Paleozoic carbonates and back into Cretaceous at TD of 10,561 ft. Devonian was reported at 3,290 ft in the Southwest 1 Davis Clark well, in 5-21s-24e, and 2,570 ft in the Waddell-Duncan well, in 5-22s-27e, both in southern Cochise County.
