Ecuador

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, May 11 – Ivanhoe Energy Inc., Calgary, completed steam and soak operations in the Cretaceous Hollin formation at the IP-15 well, its first in supergiant Pungarayacu heavy oil field on Ecuador Block 20.

Production tests have begun on a jet pump and are to last 2-3 weeks. TD is 1,343 ft, with three Hollin sandstone intervals totaling 300 ft thick and topped at 946 ft. The company invested $4.2 million in Ecuador in the quarter ended Mar. 31.

Cores and logs indicate high saturations of 13.5-15.8° gravity oil with 28% average porosity and excellent permeability. The results suggest Hollin to be an “excellent candidate for thermal development,” Ivanhoe said (OGJ, Apr. 19, 2010, p. 36).

Severe flooding in Napo Province has delayed spud of the second well, IP-5b, now set for June 20 miles south of IP-15.