LONDON (Alliance News) - Roxi Petroleum PLC on Wednesday said its focus remains on developing its existing deep wells at the BNG Contract Area in Kazakhstan to allow flow testing to commence, as work continues at a number of the sites.
The producing oil and gas company said its Deep Well A5 the pressure encountered outside the production tubing has been consistently of the order of 300 bar, and Roxi said it flows the well periodically when the pressure in the oil production tubing has exceeded 320 bar.
Over time, as the obstructions in the well have been removed, the time required for the pressure inside the tubing to revert to 320 bar has reduced from several days to a few hours, Roxi said, noting that it should not now be long before the well is able to flow continually with the pressure in the oil production tubing staying above the 250 bar level. Once the level drops below 250 bar, flowing is stopped to protect the well.
As a suitable rig has become available, work has commenced to attempt to side-track the well from a depth of 4,013 to 4,450 meters to gain access to structures at these depths, Roxi said, and, as such, work to allow the well to flow uninterrupted has been suspended and will resume once the side-track has been completed.
Meanwhile at the Deep Well 801, core samples and logging reveal a potentially oil bearing interval starting from 4,536 meters and extending 100 meters. The well has flowed periodically and Roxi said it is the company's expectation that following a programme of chemical washes the well will begin to flow on a more consistent basis.
Drilling at Deep Well 6 has reached a depth of 4,000 metres, but has been paused to allow additional 7-inch casing to be set, and then drilling will resume to a depth of 4,450 metres, with a further casing to be applied, and then down to 5,000 metres, Roxi said.
Roxi also holds interest in a number of shallow wells at the site, which it also gave an update on.
Aggregate production from the shallow wells is currently 628 barrels of oil per day, which is a net of 367 to Roxi. The company noted that at the Munaily site a workover rig is in the process of being assembled, and it expects work on the first well re-entry to commence in July. The wells were drilled during the Soviet period but were closed.
Roxi holds a 58.41% stake in Munaily, where currently 145 barrels of oil per day, with a net of 85 to Roxi, are being produced.
Roxi also has a 50% stake in Beibars Munai LLP, which operates the 167 square kilometer Beibars Contract Area on the Caspian shoreline south of the city of Aktau. No operations have been carried out at the site, since the site was put under force majeure in 2008. Roxi said it understands a court heading has been convened for September to consider the ending of the force majeure.
"Our focus continues to be in developing our existing deep wells to allow flow testing to commence," said Chairman Clive Carver.
Shares in Roxi were down 5.5% at 8.63 pence on Wednesday.
By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland
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