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This is the sentence on which my comment was based. As you mentioned Bohemia this was planned not actual and would be allowing for all kinds of eventualities. But it will take what it takes. I just look to times like this to get a feel for efficiency.
"The impact of this decision to set additional casing (and associated additional logging runs) is expected to be an additional 7 days of rig time, and associated additional cost. "
To be fair it's great they are keeping us informed, long way to go though to build up some trust between shareholders and bod again.
Stupid fact for you all, the target depth is approximately the total length of all 13 Euro 2020 football pitches!
In fairness, five days ago they were at 3,870 ft. So they have since drilled down to 4,126ft so they haven't just been setting the casing. I would imagine much of the time has been trying to keep the shales stable to work in the open hole: trying to open hole long the firth Lower Cruse section, unsuccessfully.
We don't really how long cementing the 8 1/2" pipe and running the intermediate casing has taken; in fact we don't know if that has been done yet. As far as I can see they are saying the decision to case has been taken: it's not clear if the action has been completed.
Wiltershireman. I have 37 years in so I am quite happy to comment, albeit I would concede that in times of covid there could be some additional delays, and if they weren't expecting to run the casing then it may not have been on location. That being said. A week is a long time JUST to run and cement casing at this depth.
Having spent more than twenty five years working in the North Sea and in other places on exploration I have seen many situations that are never straightforward (normal?) as is the whole process of drilling anyway. Its rare when something doesn't slow the process up. Add to that bringing contractors during Covid I reckon for an oil minnow they are doing very well especially given the setbacks and reorganisation/integration of the company. You don't know any of the background so please don't comment about 'slowness' or running casing.
That as well
disdain...
Parking my distane for the BOD and P1 debacle to focus on T&T. With the additional costs for this extended drill, does this put the project over budget excessively or a tiny blip, as the market is seeing this as a negative!!!
thanks Bamps, great info
hopefully they consolidate with $500k MC wells and build up production, then develop some capital reserves to pay for LC drills.
Steady build, no surprises, no fireworks and no more dilution please.
Hi Tiburn
LK had stated they knew how to overcome the issues they had encountered in S1, so obviously would have been passed on to CEG.
The first layer tested in the MC had a very high water cut in S1 of 90/95%. The pockets aren’t horizontal they are rising so drilling through a few of these with one well you are not likely to find the sweet spot on each one.
LK had plans of drilling 65 wells to pick up these pockets.
I still maintain they should have drilled these cheaper wells first to get some cash in and hopefully will before they drill S3 when bigger payments to the Singh estates start.
Bohemia, thanks for the link - very useful
I think the interpretation may be about gross/net sands claimed and what could be tested as Bamps and Ed outlined.
Although CERP state 1102m of net play on table in slide 4, seems Koots only claims 316 ft on slide 5 as quality - this from LC only - I assume due to high water cut/drilling tech issues and lack of ability to test in full.
CERP had these problems in S1, also from slide 5
- Difficult drilling – mobile shales require high mud weights and time consuming conditioning.
- Cost overruns due to lengthened drill time, high drilling fluid weight formulations and volumes.
- Hole conditions below 3500 ft meant setting a smaller liner (from 7” to 5 ½”) and did not allow cementing –leading to compromised production tests
- Limited volumes recovered to surface due to compromised completions.
It seems CEG have been able so far to control the problems - or so they claim - no mention of water so far.
If the 200ft of UC/MC is viable for production from S2 then some interesting options open up
more wells at $500k per well from these medium quality API zones
or
focus on LC at $2m per well but higher quality API ?
Whichever flows best key, but in these early days its going to be a critical decision, reduce risk has to be number 1 in my book until they have some foundation.
Interesting, thanks for the insight Bamps
Saffron 1 was drilled knowing there were 3 zones of interest the Upper , Middle Cruse and the Lower Cruse. There were 5 or 6 pockets of oil bearing sands in the top 2 and 3 in the Lower Cruse.
It was expected to take 45 days but the number of sand pockets slowed the drilling due to the logging of these.
A hard horizon was expected at the top of the Lower Cruse this caused major problems as it was in fact a volcanic mud/shale layer. There was no suitable drilling mud on Trinidad at the time apparently which stopped operations. A thick drilling mud was used to counteract the pressures of that layer.
You can see these volcanic muds coming out of the ground at Galpo just to the SW of Bonasse.
When total depth had been reached cleaning out the drilling muds was carried out to enable logging to take place. The cleaning out was unsuccessful due to the heavy drilling mud used so logging of the LC was inconclusive.
There was about 900’ of gross pay in about 6 pockets but the net pay was about 200’ due to amount of water in each pocket. I haven’t seen this mentioned in S2 yet but it is a problem in the Upper and Middle Cruse.
Interesting to find out what they will find in the 2 layers of the LC, obviously not going deeper for the third lower zone there must be insufficient detail to warrant going deeper.
Tiburn, yes the detailed net pay of for Saffron-1 is here: http://docs.publicnow.com/viewDoc?filename=70768%5CEXT%5C3628E505B2E1344FB5FC733C3D17D45D2070C357_C4EF11042A2526718DA8312001E1C53BE1E66F68.PDF
Indeed it doesn't gel with what the CEO is now saying. But then again the deeper Middle Cruse was a primary zone of interest two weeks ago and now, after finding 60ft, it's been re-termed "secondary" so that also seems to signal how encouraged they are.
Tiburn,
Its also interesting that CERP perforated 217ft of the MC, yet for the entire UC and MC CEG have identified 200ft in total. CERP were unable to test the lower MC, i.e. not all of the MC. That may account for at least some of the high water cut that CERP got from the MC. It sounds like from the areas of the MC that CERP tested they perforated much more than the actual net pay by doing that with 217ft. It'll be interesting to see the flow rates of the well are when accurately perforated. Also interesting to note that CERP suggested only dry oil in the samples taken from the LC below that thick shale zone.
If things go well for the completion of the well and they're not quite there yet, old Kooty suggested circa 500k per MC development well and around $2m per LC dev well. He also suggested that $3m would be required for a FFD. If Saff-2 is successful there will be lots of one off costs like separator, sales tanks etc and a multi well campaign would also cut mob costs. Also Kooty wouldn't have factored in $70/bbl oil prices either. So Saff-2 is a rather important well for CEG for sure. Perhaps their first ever new field development, interesting week next week for sure. Its certainly not for widows or orphans, but CEG could be a developer company soon.
Regards,
Ed.
Bohemia, you claimed 900 ft of oil bearing from Saffron 1 - please can you provide a link showing evidence of this? it just doesnt seem to gel with the CEO statement if your right:
" identified a very encouraging net pay of approximately 165ft of oil-bearing sands in secondary well targets. "
Total 200 ft of oil from secondary target zones - higher than they were expecting it seems as they call it very encouraging, so if lower cruse primary target comes in as expected or on same trend - overall well bopd could also be higher than the 300 bopd they estimated from this well.
All yet to be proven and tested of course, but this seems a good well so far, refuting the increasingly desperate grasping for negatives by the bear camp.
Geology? The hole was drilled. Assuming they had the correct fluids to keep it open, they had to run set cement and log.
Wiltshireman. You think a week running and setting casing at 4500ft is normal I assume
Wot,
Absolutely, it took months for CERP to get this far down Saff-1. CEG have done that in around a month. The high pressure and swelling shales were a big problem that CERP faced. Now that an intermediate casing string has been set just above the primary this stops the shales above being an issue. They can now drill the primary with relatively normal balance again rather than upping the mud weight to counter the shales. So to get the casing set is a big plus. Hopefully they'll be able to get an accurate open hole log of the LC, something that CERP were unable to do. CERP couldn't log or test the MC or LC properly in Saff-1. Not long to wait now, just about 500ft to go and fingers crossed next week will bring more good news of TD and pay in the primary, fingers crossed.
Regards,
Ed.
Wotit - amazing the intimate knowledge you have of the geology of Saffron to be able to tell us running casing is too slow. You obviously know far more than the operator does. How do you know this?
Setting the additional casing to protect the upper and middle cruse is a good move. A week to run and cement casing is much too slow. Other timings also do not appear very ambitious albeit I would assume they are telling us the worst case.
Sounds promising " But we've been here before"
Just me but doesn’t really meet my “significant” test so it’s a case of “as you were”.
Nobody awake yet for the RNS?
Where's Starchild?
I've a good feeling now, could do with great S2 news as average is somewhat above where we are. I have more confidence however than I have since the last drop.