Petrogas: Drilling of Zircon-1 exploration well in Salawati Kepala Burung PSC begins
Friday, September 6 2013 - 12:34 AM WIB
SGX-listed RH Petrogas Limited announced that drilling program has commenced at the Zircon-1 exploration well (Zircon-1) in the offshore area of the Salawati Kepala Burung PSC (Island PSC), West Papua, has started.
Located in water depth of 32 meters, the well is planned to reach a total vertical measured depth of 1,205 meters, the company said in a statement obtained Thursday. It is anticipated that drilling of the well, which started Thursday using the Bohai-8 jack-up rig, will take approximately 14 days. The well is the first of a multi-well high impact drilling program to be drilled in the offshore area of the Island PSC.
The statement said that the Zircon prospect was high-graded for drilling after conducting a 450 km2 3D seismic survey in 2010. Zircon-1 is located 4.3 km southwest of the Koi-1 discovery (Koi-1). Koi-1 was drilled in the year 2000 and the well flowed 980 BOPD (barrels of oil per day) and 2.7 MMSCFD (million standard cubic feet per day) of gas through a drill stem test from the Miocene Kais limestone.
Zircon is a larger prospect structurally up-dip and adjacent to Koi and will target the same stratigraphic interval as Koi-1. After completion of Zircon-1, the Bohai-8 rig will move to drill the Koi-2 well to appraise the Koi-1 discovery. Depending on the results of Zircon-1 and Koi-2, three additional wells may be drilled to further appraise the discoveries, the company said.
Francis Chang, Vice President Exploration and Production said, ?We are excited about the potential of Zircon-1 and Koi-2. There are numerous analogous prospects identified in the 3D area. Offshore Salawati Island has the potential to become a major production hub for the company.?
Petrogras through its wholly owned subsidiaries Petrogas (Island) Ltd. and RHP Salawati Island B.V. has an aggregate 33.21 percent working interest in the Island PSC. The Island PSC covers an area of 1,097 km2. The other partners in the Island PSC are PetroChina International Kepala Burung Ltd. (16.79%) and PT Pertamina Hulu Energi Salawati (50%). The Island PSC is operated by JOB Pertamina-PetroChina Salawati, which is a joint operating body formed between Pertamina and PetroChina. The consortium, as contractor of Indonesian government operating under the supervision of upstream oil and gas authority SKK Migas, has actively explored and produced oil and gas in the working area.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak