Harvest Resources' drilling of KD-1ST well reaches target depth

Harvest Natural Resources Inc, which is listed in the New York Stock Exchange, said that the exploration well KD-1ST within the Budong-Budong PSC onshore Sulawesi, has reached a total measured depth of 14,437 feet (13,576 feet true vertical depth), the company said in a statement.

The KD-1ST was the second exploratory well of a two well program on the Budong PSC drilled to test stacked Miocene and Eocene targets within a thrusted anticline.

The company said the well is abandoned with oil shows, proving the existence of a working petroleum system in the Karama Basin.

The well was spudded on June 20, 2011. The well was initially drilled to a depth of 9,633 feet and sidetracked after the drill string was severed.

It said the sidetrack KD-1ST was initially drilled to a total depth of 11,800 feet and logged. The evaluation of cuttings, logs and sidewall cores demonstrated the presence of oil over a 200 feet section of low permeability and low porosity clastic rocks in the Miocene.

Although the well encountered both Oligocene and Eocene stratigraphy before drilling reached the break-event point (BOP) pressure limit, the primary Eocene reservoir target had not yet been reached, the company said.

Biostratigraphy indicates the section at total depth to be Eocene deep water shales. Nearby within the basin are a number of Eocene outcrops with known fluvial reservoir and source rocks, along with oil and gas seeps.

Harvest expects to spend the net dry hole cost of $22.9 million in the current quarter.

Post well evaluation will include reprocessing of the seismic to pre-stack depth migration and correlation of the KD-1ST well and outcrop data to better define prospectivity for both Miocene and Eocene targets within the Karama basin.

Harvest owns a 64.4 percent working interest in the Budong-Budong PSC. Tately Budong-Budong N.V. is the operator of the Budong-Budong Block.

Editing by Roffie Kurniawan