By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Mar. 26 -- An Australian operator placed on production a well making 1.5 MMcfd of gas from the Jurassic Morrison sand formation on the north side of Helper coalbed methane field in Carbon County, Utah.
Marion Energy Ltd., with a US subsidiary in Dallas, said the Kenilworth Railroad 1-A well is "the first productive well drilled in this reservoir section within a 50-mile radius."
Areal extent is to be established, but based on current knowledge the company believes Morrison may be productive on 3,800 acres of the 9,000 acres of leases it holds in this part of the Helper play.
The discovery well, in 16-13s-10e, 90 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, went to TD 8,524 ft in the Triassic Wingate formation to evaluate formations below the field's Cretaceous Ferron CBM and sandstone reservoir. It topped Cretaceous Dakota at 4,698 ft, Cedar Mountain at 4,752 ft, Morrison at 5,540 ft, Entrada at 6,781 ft, and Navajo at 8,144 ft.
Productive gas zones are in the Cedar Mountain and Morrison formations.
While drilling, it had numerous strong gas shows and flowed gas to surface at 5,300 ft to 7,900 ft, where pressures were abnormally high, the company said. The completed interval is 50 ft of Morrison at 5,500 ft.
Most of the potentially productive section has not been tested, and Marion Energy plans to develop it with offset wells. The company has 100% working interest in the well and 70% interest in the offsetting acreage.
Meanwhile, after the most severe winter in the past 10 years, Marion Energy has hooked up five new wells in the 17,092-acre Clear Creek Federal Unit at elevations as high as 10,500 ft about 20 miles west of Helper field on the Carbon-Emery County line. Ridge Runner 13-17, 11-17, 11-20, 1-30, and 2-19, are producing gas from Ferron at 6,000 ft and are expected to stabilize in 4-6 weeks after dewatering.
Two more wells are to be tied in within weeks, and an eighth awaits a frac job. The company has 100% working interest in the field.
Potential exists to recover about 1 tcf of gas through several hundred wells by redeveloping the field on 80-acre spacing. Clear Creek, developed in the 1950s-60s, yielded 137 bcf of gas from 17 wells on wide spacing.
Stabilized production of the original wells at Clear Creek was 1-5 MMcfd, with most wells flowing at the upper end of the range, and all results to date for Marion Energy's wells point to stabilized rates within this range, the company said.
