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Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Fastnet Oil & Gas has received its independent assessment of eight exploration permits comprising the Tendrara Lakbir Petroleum Agreement onshore Morocco. The assessment was conducted by SLR Consulting.
As announced in May of this year Fastnet entered into an exclusive option agreement with Oil and Gas Investment Funds (OGIF) to farm into the Tendrara-Lakbir License through its wholly owned subsidiary Pathfinder Hydrocarbon Ventures.
The SLR report provides an independent assessment and verification of previously published historical resource estimates for the area covered by the Tendrara-Lakbir License prior to Fastnet exercising an option to drill an appraisal in 2014 and executing a rig contract. In addition, ahead of drilling, the company also wished to explore the potential options to monetize the discovered gas in the TE-5-Lakbir structure by determining the theoretical gas flow rates from proven gas reservoirs; as well as optimizing the well design to assist with achieving the maximum potential theoretical flow rates by limiting formation damage while drilling, completing, and testing. There will also be seismic re-mapping to assess potential compartmentalization risks within the larger TE-5 Lakbir structure and Fastnet will establish an outline development plan based on different production profiles to assess the range of field deliverabilities and their impact on any infrastructure and gas demand constraints.
The company recognizes that a successful early appraisal of the TE-5 Lakbir structure by Fastnet and its partners ONHYM and OGIF has important implications for the strategic planning of Morocco’s future gas requirements and the location of new gas-fired power plants. It will enable the validation of the potential Contingent Resources and the potential production profile for any field development scenarios. For this reason early confirmation of the potential scope of the TE-5 Lakbir structure to provide indigenous gas to the developing gas-to-power options is critical.
Fastnet has completed a series of desk-top studies to address these issues and to provide new data for the Independent Resources Report by SLR, on the basis of which the historical published estimates of resources can be assessed and validated. A study by a specialist Houston-based NuTech petrophysical team has quantified reservoir properties for the Triassic TAGI Sand that are consistent with a good potential gas flow rate from a gross gas-bearing interval in TE-5 of 82.2 meters. Significantly an independent petrophysical study has also shown that there is no gas-water contact in the TE-5 well.
New seismic depth mapping has shown that the formerly designated TE-5, Lakbir and TE-NE structures are potentially a single structure with a common gas-water contact in the P50 and P10 Contingent Resources Estimates. This will require verification by a long step-out appraisal well.
Critically this work identifies formation damage as a significant issue in previous drilling and testing on the structure which limited absolute gas flow potential from the TE-5 well. In addition, the study identifies that the nature of the permeability characteristics of the TAGI reservoir interval does not facilitate exploitation by horizontal drilling. Furthermore a significant conclusion of the study is that surface compression in a development scenario will reduce well-head pressures and potentially accelerate recovery of gas.
Preliminary scoping cost estimates for the above Low, Best and High case development scenarios are provided that allow for scoping economics to be performed for each case.
An appraisal well to the TE-5 gas discovery will be required first to validate the potential well deliverability in order to re-calibrate the above potential field production profiles.
A new well design study by Dennis Krahn, Chartered Petroleum Engineer, Summit Upstream, supports the enhanced well potential by designing and drilling a conventional appraisal well using modern technologies to minimize and, preferably, eliminate the formation damage seen in previous drilling operations which impacted previous gas flow rate potential. Scoping well costs have been determined based on the design and equipment criteria necessary for optimizing drilling operations to ensure good deliverability from the TAGI reservoirs.
Commenting, Paul Griffiths, Managing Director of Fastnet, said: “We are pleased that our decision to undertake a series of comprehensive desk-top studies by key specialists with experience and proven track records has been justified by the independent verification of the potential Contingent Resources for the TE-5 – Lakbir Structure. This has provided us with invaluable insight to understand and address the important historical issues related to drilling and completion operations, reservoir quality, reservoir engineering, well performance and the potential for structural compartmentalization that may have held back the exploitation of the TAGI gas reservoir in the past. An important step in validating the resources potential will be an appraisal well in 2014. It is designed to optimize the flow potential from the TAGI by minimizing formation damage as well as collecting high quality flow rate and pressure data with which to validate and re-calibrate the current reservoir engineering studies. We are excited about the drilling of this project as we continue to deliver on our “early mover” strategy. We have again successfully identified and quickly secured dormant high-impact opportunities with latent potential to deliver at the higher end of conventional expectations. Our seasoned technical expertise allowed us to de-risk the asset by addressing key historical issues paving the way to a fast-moving drilling program based on a sound assessment of geological and well operations risks.”
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