By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, July 27 -- A private Dallas area independent plans to perforate and test next week an exploratory well that encountered oil 35 miles south of Alpine, Tex., in the nonproducing Marfa basin.
Giant Petroleum Inc., Las Colinas, Tex., set production casing near permitted depth of 6,000 ft at its Giant-Lykes DPW-1C well after logs and cuttings indicated the presence of oil in an undisclosed formation.
Giant's wellsite is in Brewster County just east of a Union Oil Co. of California well drilled to about 8,500 ft in Presidio County in the early 1980s that tested oil to surface and was deemed noncommercial (see map, OGJ, Jan. 20, 1992, p. 59). Giant owns interests in 6,000 acres in the two counties and options on more, said Chris Plunkett, president.
Plunkett declined to identify the "hybrid" formation but said it is neither a shale nor a pure limestone or sandstone. It is regional in extent and similar to formations that produce in frontal Marathon-Ouachita fields to the east in Pecos County, he said.
He held most downhole information confidential for now but said the well was not drillstem-tested and the oil has not been analyzed. Giant ran a complete log suite including dipmeter and imaging logs, he said.
Plunkett reported difficult drilling in which the hole was lost twice due to swelling shales and lost circulation before a larger rig was brought in. Runoff from unseasonal rains in the desert area washed out the location road repeatedly, he added.
The well, originally programmed to test deeper shale gas, is near larger acreage positions held by Continental Resources Corp., Enid., Okla., and TXCO Resources Inc., San Antonio (see map, OGJ, Apr. 10, 2006, p. 33).
Giant's wellsite is southeast of a small field in Presidio County 14 miles southeast of Marfa that produced a small amount of oil from about 3,800 ft in the late 1990s (see map, OGJ, Nov. 10, 1997, p. 87).
