Inpex delineates E. Timor gas field

Japan oil, gas firm Inpex Corp. will begin spudding delineation wells in Masela PSC within the next few days as part of program to prove up gas reserves in the block a BPMIGAS official said on Thursday.

BPMIGAS Deputy Chairman in charge of Operations Dodi Hidayat told Petromindo.Com that a rig owned by Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. is currently in positioning mode.

Dodi said Inpex would drill 4 delineation wells to confirm the block’s reserves prior to submitting plan of development.

A report recently filed by Diamond Offshore said that its rig Ocean Epoch was contracted by Inpex to conduct 3-well drilling in Indonesia from April to November 2007 with day rate of around US$130,000, followed by two additional wells in mid 170's beginning early November.

The Masela Block is located offshore southwest of Tanimbar Island, about 800 kilometers east of Kupang and approximately 400 kilometers north of Darwin, Australia. Inpex operates the block with 100 percent of working interest.

In 2002, Inpex confirmed a large natural gas accumulation in the block after two appraisal wells, Abadi-2 and Abadi-3, tested a total 32.4 million cubic feet a day of natural gas..

Gas reserves at Masela are estimated to be around 4-7 TCF, which could warrant for development of an LNG plant. Report from Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai said in October last year that Inpex will invest US$4 billion to develop LNG plant in Masela, capable of producing 3 MTPA of LNG, with production to seen to begin in 2015. (godang)