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Kea Petroleum plans to drill sidetracks later at Beluga
29 June 2010 - Kea Petroleum has suspended its onshore Taranaki Beluga-1 well, where earlier gas shows were reported, and will later drill a sidetrack into two potentially more productive targets.
Sources: Kea Petroleum and Lindsay Clark
Kea said that the rig will be demobilised from the site and after further study the hole would be re-entered and a deviated well drilled into the Tariki sands and/or Mangahewa sands in PEP 51155.
The Kea directors said they believe this course of action can be achieved at relatively low cost and could potentially have a better chance of commercial success than casing and flow testing the existing Beluga-1 well.
In an earlier well report Kea said Beluga-1 had intersected the Tariki sands, which electric log analysis indicated as gas charged and over-pressured. However, the well location appears to be sub-optimal and too close to the up-dip pinchout of the sands.
Consequently the likely production rates from these thinner sands may not justify hook-up and sales to methanol producer Methanex which fully financed the Beluga-1 well and holds a back-to-back 15 year gas offtake agreement with Kea.
Kea said the well has established two future objectives both of which could be accessible from a relatively short side-track: downdip to the east Tariki sands are expected to thicken with improved reservoir quality, while updip to the south Mangahewa sands appear to form a closed structure that could also trap gas.
The Beluga-1 well will be suspended at the 7 inch casing shoe, several hundred m above the Tariki sands.
Kea said Methanex is supportive of Kea's decision to suspend the well and to conduct further analysis for a prospective deviation.
Chief executive officer Dave Bennett said that Beluga-1 was operationally very successful. “Its suspension allows us time to review all information in an orderly manner, and to define optimal future drilling operations,” he said.
