The PEP 38716 partners have decided to drill ahead, past the casing which was last week set from about 2810m to 4390m, further down into the Eocene-aged Kapuni sequence. Barefoot flow testing is scheduled to start later this week at the well site east of Stratford.
However, the news was not so good at the Opito-1 well site, 75km northeast of New Plymouth. Operator New Zealand Oil and Gas said the targeted Kapuni C sands had been intersected, but only minor oil shows which were not considered to be commercially significant were encountered.
Indo-Pacific Energy chief executive Dave Bennett said from Wellington that drilling at Huinga would continue past the end of the casing and logging would be carried over the new interval if possible.
Testing of the entire Kapuni sequence encountered would then be done. If oil flowed to surface a completion could be run. If not the well would be suspended and the Parker Drilling 188 rig released to the Pohokura partners for their next onshore deviated appraisal well of the 1tcf-plus gas field in PEP 38459.
The well suspension would allow a smaller and cheaper rig to be brought on to the Huinga site at a later date to allow testing of the numerous extensive fractures encountered within the Murihiku Group metasediments basement to be done, added Bennett.
Huinga is on the eastern margin trend, the prospectivity of which has been established by the more southern onshore Rimu and Kauri discoveries, and further enhanced by the results of the recently drilled and suspended Makino-1 well.
The closeness of the Waihapa production station and pipeline to Port Taranaki at New Plymouth will aid any development decision should Huinga-1B prove commercially viable.
Meanwhile, NZOG exploration manager Eric Matthews said from the Opito well site that the 3000m exploration well was at a depth of 2882m and drilling ahead. Over the next few days logging operations would be done to collect information so that the pre-drill predictions could be reconciled with the results of the well. The significance of elevated gas readings recorded around the 2530m mark would also be assessed.
It was very likely the rank wildcat well, the first in PEP38729, would then be plugged and abandoned, said Matthews. The estimated potential recoverable oil within the mapped Opito closure, of over 44 km2, had exceeded 200 million barrels.
A philosophical Matthews said NZOG would like to emulate its Australian successes and strike commercial oil or gas in New Zealand. Its last Kiwi success was the Ngatoro oil field discovery of the early 1990s.
NZOG would now be looking forward to the next New Zealand well it would be involved with, the Tabla-1 exploration well within the Ngatoro mining licence PMP 38148 further south in Taranaki. That well was due to spud within the next two months.
