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Friday, March 7, 2014
Caracal Energy updated its operations in Chad starting with its Badila field where it has brought the Badila-6 well online. The company’s numbers are currently up 2,200 bpd from its January numbers and in line with its expectations for the period. Caracal’s guidance of 22,000 to 26,000 bpd annual average 2014 production is expected to be met.
Production from the Badila field has been stable since the commissioning of the facilities was completed in December 2013, with oil production, water production and well pressure consistent with forecasts. Badila processing capacity, previously constrained to 14,000 barrels of fluid per day (bfpd) has now been expanded to 25,000 bfpd with the completion of the southern processing terminal (SPT). The SPT will handle excess Badila production until expansion of the Badila facilities are completed, which is expected during Q3. Production from the Badila field has been increasing since the commissioning of these facilities was completed in December 2013.
Current operations at Badila include the drilling of the Badila-7 well with the rig GWD-96, and preparations to spud Badila-9 with rig GWD-158 are underway. The GWD-158 rig is capable of deep drilling and once Badila-9 drilling is finished, will be move it to the Kibea-Beche area for a continuous spring/summer exploration drilling program. GWD-96 will continue in the Badila field, drilling Badila wells for additional production rate capacity.
Caracal plans to keep busy in Chad and has commenced the mobilization process of an additional four drilling rigs, which will bring the total rig count to six by the end of 2014. In addition, two completion rigs will be mobilized into the country during 2014, to bring the total completion rig count to three. One of these new completion rigs also has the ability to drill medium depth wells. The first of the four additional drilling rigs has arrived in the port of Douala, Cameroon and is scheduled to arrive in Chad to commence drilling during Q2.
The company has plans to test the Bitanda exploration well in the coming months, currently, the workover/completions rig remains in Mangara, testing and completing Mangara-6.
On the Kibea and Beche Caracal has mobilized a seismic contractor to shoot 2D and 3D seismic throughout its asset base in Chad. Much of the planned 1,500 line kms of 2D seismic is completed and was focused on well placement for structures to be drilled in the 2014-2016 exploration programs as well as further evaluation of additional prospects currently not included in the company’s estimates.
Of the 700 sq km planned for 2014,450 sq km will be focused on the Kibea discovery and nearby Beche exploration area, which includes three prospects with similar structures to the discovery at Kibea. The seismic has been shot over the Kibea and nearly completed over the Beche area. Preliminary processing indicates that the seismic acquired is of excellent quality. The three prospects in the Beche exploration area are assessed 420 million barrels of Pmean unrisked gross recoverable Prospective Resource in aggregate, according to the McDaniel Resource Report.1 Kibea is a light oil discovery (33 – 35 degrees API) with 45.9 million barrels of gross 2P reserves, and 105.0 million barrels of gross 3P reserves according to the McDaniel Reserves Report.
The first well, the Kibea-2, scheduled for Q2, in the Kibea-Beche trend will be an appraisal and deep test on the Kibea structure. The Kibea-2 well will provide a test of deep Cretaceous potential identified on prior 2D well data acquired on Kibea-1 and the new 3D seismic. According to the McDaniel Resource Report, gross unrisked prospective resources below in the Kibea discovery are 40.1-76.9 million barrels on Pmean and P10 basis, respectively. In addition, oil samples to be acquired during testing of existing discovered reservoirs in Kibea-2 will provide development and pipeline design information. Drilling two of the three Beche exploration prospects is expected to commence in Q3 2014, once Kibea-2 is tested.
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