Emerging domestic natural gas and helium producer Renergen is progressing with the drilling of the P2V2 well at its Virginia gas project, in the Free State.
The well has been beset with delays since being spudded in June; however, the company on November 27 said it now had two drill rigs active on the project, with Renergen having recently successfully set casing at the base of the Karoo sequence.
Following this, borehole integrity tests will be conducted, prior to re-entering the hole with directional drilling equipment.
Going forward, Renergen plans to drill directionally to intersect the subvertical fracture systems, which are the conduits for the gas – low pressure methane and helium – flows in nearby producing wells.
Meanwhile, Renergen reports that the MDR1 well – a legacy well about 300 m from a known gas-productive fracture and previously cased to the base of the Karoo sediments – has been re-entered with a directional drilling unit, also on a turnkey basis.
Renergen reports that, while directional control from the base of Karoo has so far proved to be slower to drill, encouraging gas shows are clearly evident in the drilling mud. Subject to resolving the directional control in the well, Renergen plans to drill ahead to the target fractures before evacuating the drilling mud and flow-testing the hole.
Planning is also advanced for an additional three-well programme with a new drilling contractor, with operations expected to commence in the next two weeks.
Renergen will accumulate all the data from the current drilling programme and use this to inform the reserves update which will follow several weeks later.