JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Triple-listed energy company Falcon Oil & Gas’s nine-well exploration and appraisal programme in Australia’s Beetaloo basin, running between 2015 and 2018, is progressing as planned, the company announced on Monday.
The horizontal section of the Amungee NW-1H well was successfully cased and cemented earlier this month and preparations are now being finalised to conduct a multistage hydraulic stimulation.
The hydraulic stimulation is expected to start around mid-August and will involve up to ten stages, taking up to two weeks to complete. An extended production-testing programme will then follow.
The well was drilled to a total measured depth of 3 808 m in November, including a 1 100 m horizontal section in the B Shale interval of the Middle Velkerri formation.
The company expects to drill to 3 045 m at its Beetaloo W-1 well, the fourth well of Falcon's fully carried five-well 2015/16 drilling and evaluation programme.
This well, which is targeting the unexplored southern Beetaloo basin for shale and hybrid shale-sand plays in the Velkerri and Kyalla formations, was spudded on July 2.
The well is designed to test the presence, depth, thickness and physical reservoir properties of the organic rich mudstones of the Kyalla formation and the Middle Velkerri member.
Drilling is estimated to take between 35 and 50 days.
"The multistage hydraulic stimulation of the horizontal section of the Amungee NW-1H well, scheduled to be completed next month, could go a long way towards proving up the resource potential of the Beetaloo basin,” commented CEO Philip O'Quigley.
He added that the Beetaloo W-1 well represented another exciting phase of the exploration programme, as it would be the first well to penetrate the Middle Velkerri member in the south of the basin.