(Alliance News) - Valeura Energy Inc on Monday said a fourth zone test at the Inanli-1 well in Turkey's Thrace basin also showed stable gas production, though the firm will not be conducting a further shallower test due to high levels of condensate.
Shares in Valeura were down 15% at 55.00 pence in London late on Tuesday morning.
As such, the upstream natural gas firm noted, all four of the tested zones had stable production and it "remains optimistic that zones within the Inanli-1 well offer the potential for exploitation through horizontal drilling and potentially through comingled vertical completions".
The fourth zone test was targeting an interval of between 3,681 metres and 3,723 metres within the Kesan formation. This was stimulated using 100 tonnes of proppant. Net porous sand in the section was interpreted as being 37.6 metres with a 6.8% porosity average.
The interval flowed for ten days with an artificial lift used to help clean up the well. The average net gas rate for the ten-day period was 306,000 cubic feet per day. For the last 24 hours of flow it was down at 171,000 cubic feet per day.
Valeura said "gas from this zone was produced alongside condensate" and had a condensate to gas ration of 23 barrels per million cubic feet for the entire flow period, though this rose during the test to reach 97 barrels per million cubic feet in the last 24 hours of testing. Water recovery came in at 98 barrels per day in the last 24 hours "and was declining".
Overall, "the flow results of the fourth test were similar to the results of the third test between 3,855 and 3,925 metres".
The priority now is to test deeper zones within the Thrace Basin, as these have "better gas flow with negligible associated water". As such, Valeura will commence testing of the Devepinar-1 well located 20 kilometres west of Inanli-1.
Valeura is developing the Thrace Basin alongside Equinor. The two companies had intended to test a shallower zone in Inanli-1 was after results of tests three and four, with their high condensate yields, it instead plans to leave the well as is so that "it is possible to re-enter the well to conduct further work in the future".
President & Chief Executive Sean Guest said: "With the completion of the fourth test interval at Inanli-1, we now feel we have a much better understanding of the vertical variability of our tight gas play. We are particularly encouraged by the stable rates of dry gas flowed from the deeper intervals, as these results exceeded our expectations. With that in mind, we are now moving to Devepinar-1 to test the deepest intervals there.
"Early results from the Devepinar-1 well will allow us to commence discussions and planning for the next step of the appraisal of our play."
Guest also said he was pleased that fluid composition did not prevent gas flow at Inanli-1 and he was "encouraged by the very high condensate yields" see in the fourth test,
"While more work will be required to understand the implications of this condensate in the shallow zones, we are commencing reservoir and economic modelling based on the gas test results. Given the strong gas price realisations in Turkey and the readily accessible infrastructure through our owned gathering network, we believe there will be zones that can be economic in the longer-term," Guest added.
"In addition, we are very pleased that our testing program on Inanli-1 has been delivered without any health, safety or environmental incidents and that we have been able to sell most of the gas produced during the testing operations rather than flaring," he continued.
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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