Buru edges closer to new Canning Basin oil production

Canning Basin focussed hydrocarbon producer, Buru Energy, has delivered its latest oil shipment from the Ungani field, with 73,757 barrels of oil transferred from a storage tank at Wyndham port to a tanker.

The company realised about $80 per barrel from the transaction with Petro-Diamond Singapore, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation, with Buru provisionally invoicing about $2.95m for its 50% share of the product, subject to small adjustments related to the average November price for crude oil.

On-site, Buru has now completed its first and second lateral sections of 290m and 145m respectively, into the prospective Ungani dolomite reservoir at the Ungani 7H well, with no significant drilling problems encountered so far according to management.

A third lateral section is presently being drilled and is expected to be completed by mid-week.
After the third lateral is complete, the well will be put on clean-up flow and the coil tubing unit will then be moved to the Ungani 6H nearby, to commence well clean-out and running of the expandable liner.

Buru said that the Ungani 7H well flowed oil several times during the drilling operation and initial clean-up flows from the first two wellbores into the Ungani facility have given indicated rates of some 1,400 barrels of oil per day.

The clean-up flow results are only indicative at this point the company said, with further updates to be provided after the final horizontal section is drilled and stabilised flow rates into the Ungani facility have been established.

Buru also gave an update on its Miani-1 well, saying that logs over intervals where hydrocarbon shows were located during drilling, were tight and did not hold producible zones.

However, results of that well will now be analysed to determine the significance of the initial hydrocarbon shows and the geological formations intersected, to determine the prospectivity for additional exploration requirements in the area.

Buru Executive Chairman Eric Streitberg said: “The operation of the underbalanced coil drilling system in the horizontal sections has exceeded our expectations, with excellent drilling times and concise directional control. The U7 well has performed in line with our predictions on clean-up flow from the initial two laterals and we look forward to finalising the third lateral and getting the well on longer-term production.”

Elsewhere, the company’s Adoxi 1 exploration well, located a short distance northeast of Ungani, was drilled and completed late last month with a potential 10m oil zone identified, the company said.

Buru also indicated that its Blina 4 well in the Blina oilfield, southeast of the Miani-1 well, was “recompleted” in preparation for well testing there.

The company is seeking to intersect oil in stratigraphic traps within reef-formed carbonate rocks in the wider Canning Basin, which is a series of sedimentary geological units in the southwest Kimberley region some 2,300km north of Perth.

The Canning Basin is the largest sedimentary basin in WA, covering an area of some 530,000 square kilometres. It has similarities with some of the highly productive basins of the same geological age globally and is one of the few remaining areas in onshore Australia that are relatively underexplored for hydrocarbons.

Buru holds the dominant land position in the Canning Basin and in addition to the significant conventional Ungani oilfield, it also has an extensive and highly prospective exploration portfolio covering oil and gas prospects that are well-defined by both 2D and 3D seismic.

With pending production from two new wells within the Ungani oilfield, the company is now well-positioned financially to continue its wide-ranging hunt for economic accumulations of hydrocarbons within its significant ground holdings in the Canning.

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