3rd Jul 2014 08:03
LONDON (Alliance News) - Hurricane Energy PLC Thursday said it has successfully demobilised its drilling unit from testing a horizontal appraisal well on its Lancaster discovery, west of Shetland, after completing the drilling phase last month.
The UK-based oil and gas company, which focuses on hydrocarbon resources in naturally fractured basement reservoirs, said the Transocean Sedco 712 semi-submersible drill unit was under contract for 73.5 days, which is under its budgeted 75.9 days.
Whilst on location, the unit drilled and tested a 1 kilometre horizontal section of Lancaster fractured basement reservoir, with preliminary data showing that its target fault zones were present and the encountered section is fractured and oil bearing.
The company said in June that focus at the site has moved to preparation for the testing phase of the operation and on Thursday it said that, following completion of detailed analysis from the site, it expects to make an announcement of the results by late in the third quarter.
Fractured basement reservoirs are deep rock structures that have been naturally fractured by earthquakes and tectonic forces, and are as long as two and a half billion years old. The oil resides in the cracks that have formed between the rocks, rather than being contained in the rocks as with traditional sandstone reservoir oil plays.
Fractured basement reservoirs sites are closely associated with large oil plays such as the Bach Ho field offshore Vietnam, which has 1,450 million barrels of oil reserves, and the La Paz fractured basement in Venezuela, which has 678 million barrels of reserves.
The Lancaster Field has estimated 2C Contingent Resources of 207 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Hurricane Energy shares were down 12% to 41.55 pence putting it amongst the top three AIM All-Share losers during early trading on Thursday.
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
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