MOL tests Bijeel oil find in Iraq Kurdistan
By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Mar. 9 -- A unit of MOL Hungarian Oil & Gas PLC has gauged oil and gas at the Bijeel-1 exploratory well in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The well, in the east-central part of the 889 sq km Akri Bijeel block, flowed at rates of as much as 3,200 b/d of 18° gravity oil and 933 Mscfd of associated gas at 420 psi flowing wellhead pressure on a 48/64-in. choke. The tested zone is in the Upper Jurassic.
MOL’s Kalegran Ltd. has an 80% undiluted equity working interest in the block, and Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda, has 20%.
After completion of the full test cycle, drilling will resume from the present depth of 3,831 m to a final planned depth of 4,400 m pending actual well results, Gulf Keystone said.
The Akri Bijeel block is north of Erbil and just east of the Shaikan Block, where the two companies reported the Shaikan-1 oil discovery last August (OGJ Online, Aug. 11, 2009).
The companies were awarded the Shaikan and Akri Bijeel blocks in late 2007, and in July 2009 Gulf Keystone announced the award of interests in production sharing contracts covering the Sheikh Adi and Ber Bahr blocks west of Shaikan.
Etamic Ltd., an independent energy fund founded for the purpose of making investments in the upstream oil and gas exploration and production business in the Middle East and Central Asia, negotiated for the award of the Sheikh Adi PSC and the assignment of an interest in the Ber Bahr PSC.
Gulf Keystone proposed and it was agreed that Etamic merge these interests with Gulf Keystone’s existing interests in exchange for Gulf Keystone shares conferring Etamic a 50% equity interest in GKPI. Etamic will fund 50% of the costs to be incurred by Gulf Keystone following the drilling of Shaikan-1 and Bijeel-1.
Gulf Keystone will operate the 180 sq km Sheikh Adi Block with 80% interest, and Genel Energy International Ltd. will operate the 350 sq km Ber Bahr block with 40% interest and Gulf Keystone will have 40% interest.
The block interests obtained through Etamic are at terms far more favorable than those of the Shaikan and Akri Bijeel blocks, Gulf Keystone said.