Buru Energy has reported steady progress with its drilling program at the Ungani 8H horizontal development well aimed at lifting production levels at its cash-generating Canning Basin oil field in Western Australia. The company said it has now passed the 1000 metre mark towards a target depth of 2560m with operations proceeding as planned and there were no adverse incidents to report.
This is Buru’s eighth well on the Ungani field - its prime production asset and part of a follow up campaign aiming to drain the north-eastern part of the central fault block, or “CFB”, of the Ungani Field.
The contracted Ensign 963 rig kicked off mid-December in the Production License L20 licence area and is expected to be completed in the third week of January.
The Ungani 8H well is located less than a kilometre from the Ungani 1 and 2 wellheads and the Ungani Production Facility in the Canning Basin. From there, the company plans to truck the oil to the port of Wyndham for export to Singapore.
Buru said lessons learned when drilling previous horizontal wells included drilling the well with larger bore and casing sizes than were previously used.
The design for the Ungani 8H completion program allowed contingency for additional casing strings which were successfully implemented when drilling the preceding Ungani 7H well.
Buru said the 20-inch surface conductor has been successfully set at 49.5m and then drilled ahead to section depth of 991m in a 17½ inch hole. The company said 13⅜ inch casing has now been installed to a measured depth of 988m and successfully pressure tested.
The current operation is drilling ahead at 1,050m in 12¼ inch hole to the 9⅝ inch casing setting depth at the top of the Ungani Dolomite reservoir section at around 2,565m. The horizontal 8½ inch section of the well will then be drilled into the Ungani Dolomite reservoir formation.
Buru appears to be gathering some momentum following its recent Rafeal-1 discovery. If successful with its drive at Ungani 8H it should be able to book more reserves and boost cash flows.
Rafael-1 is a “wet gas”, meaning liquids-rich discovery well to the east, which Buru is aiming to production test in January once Covid-related travel restrictions are overcome.
When drilled in November Buru said the Rafael-1 stepout well had yielded a total gross interpreted gas column interval of 165m.
It said petrophysical interpretation and wireline logs suggested the net reservoir section is similar to the highly productive conventional dolomite reservoir at the Ungani Oilfield.
Buru Energy Managing Director Eric Streitberg said last month: ”Subject to further analysis of data to hand, and to the results of the impending production test, the Rafael discovery has the potential to be a very material wet gas accumulation in conventional high quality dolomite reservoir, with very low CO2 content in the gas.
The first quarter of 2022 promises to be full of news flow for Buru Energy, which is aiming for a boost from the current Ungani 8H development well and the production testing program following the very encouraging Rafael-1 discovery well.
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By Matt Birney
