31/01/2012
Onaero Moves Closer to Production
Greymouth re-entered the historic 1980 Onaero-1 well, about 30km north of New Plymouth, during mid-2011 and last August announced hydrocarbon flows “of particular significance”.
It has been testing the well it now calls Onaero-1R, in exploration lease PEP 38746, since then and is understood to be finishing its test program of probably several Eocene-aged intervals, by the end of March.
According to the government’s New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals Unit, Greymouth’s remaining work program obligations for the Onaero lease include stimulating and flow testing the re-entered well, revising and updating seismic maps and geologic models, incorporating data from well logs, and analysing well test data to understand reservoir properties and estimate future production capability.
The second five-year term of the exploration lease expires in August this year and it is understood Greymouth, through subsidiary Petrochem, is applying for a petroleum mining permit for the discovery. It has already applied to produce petroleum for sale from the field.
And the company has shifted the Tiger Rig, a “triple” Cheetah design rig imported into New Zealand during 2009 by subsidiary Tiger Drilling Company, about 5km south to the Turangi-B wellsite in the neighbouring mining lease PMP 38161.
It is believed Greymouth is about to spud, within the next day or two, another appraisal-development well several kilometres north of the 2005 Turangi-1 discovery well that encountered multiple hydrocarbon-bearing sandstones with the Eocene-aged Kapuni formation.
Industry commentators say the expanded Greymouth exploration and production team is taking a second look at many of the Eocene-aged wells drilled within their north Taranaki exploration leases.
Greymouth is re-entering some historic wells and deviating the original wellbores to, hopefully, hit more hydrocarbons. It is also continuing to drill further appraisal-development wells in its more recent discoveries.
Onaero, Ohanga and Turangi are all at the northern end of the regional inversion Mangahewa anticline that has proved productive over the years for a number of companies, with Todd Energy’s Mangahewa and Greymouth’s Kowhai gas-condensate fields also on the anticline.
Story courtesy of Petroleum News.net