L&M gives the green light to CSG test
LISTED junior explorer L&M Petroleum again has coal seam gas cores fizzing at one of its wells onshore Southland, New Zealand, and is now confident enough to conduct its first long-term production test later this year.
The Wellington-headquartered company today reported that the Mount Linton-2 CSG well, in the Western Southland Basin licence PEP 38226 (Waiau), had reached basement at a depth of 466m and wellbore logging operations were now underway.
A total of about 8m of Beaumont Formation coal measures were encountered during drilling and the cores that were recovered – showing initial evidence of high gas content – had been sent to CRL Energy in Christchurch to undergo full laboratory analysis.
“The cores were reportedly fizzing when they were pulled out of this well, as they were at Wairaki,” managing director John Bay told PetroleumNews.net, referring to CSG bubbling out of the Wairaki-1 well in the adjacent licence PEP 38238 (Blackmount) last November.
He was unable to give any reliable estimates of how much gas there was in the cores as a crush test had yet to be conducted.
However, he said the 8m of coals recovered was “a good number” and that the Mt Linton well was well placed in the middle of the Takitimu South trend to be used as a test well.
“We are still cautiously optimistic but are now sufficiently encouraged to start long-term production testing.”
Bay said L&M felt it had drilled enough wells to identify likely locations for CSG, and cored enough good samples to move to the third and final phase of exploration – long-term production testing to assess such things as permeability, flow characteristics, water content and pressure drawdowns.
A second well, to monitor activity at Mt Linton, would be necessary, said Bay, so production testing was unlikely to start before September or October.
He anticipated logging would be completed later today, when the Mt Linton-2 wellbore would be suspended pending installation of the necessary equipment to undertake long-term production testing.
The Mt Linton well is being drilled to appraise the Beaumont coals encountered previously in the Sharpridge Creek-1 well drilled by L&M in 2006, which flowed gas to surface during a drill stem test.
After this, the Washington’s core rig-4 will be shifted back to the Belmont wellsite in the Blackmount licence to drill the first of two stratigraphic CSG wells to further appraise the extent of the Eocene-aged coal fairways in that permit.
L&M plugged and abandoned the original Belmont-1 well late last month after an unsuccessful fishing expedition failed to free a stuck core barrel.
The company plans to drill up to seven test wells during 2009 to confirm the potential 330 petajoules of CSG resource in its onshore Western Southland Basin permits.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
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