RE: Q&A1 May 2023 01:09
We have had a great many questions on the RNS of March 28th, April 7th and April 18th and the status of the temporary and permanent flowlines connecting the new B7T well to the process plant and so to export sales. Rather than repeat all of the questions we have endeavoured to supply a single answer to all as below. Asked on 30 April 2023
On 18 April 2023 we announced the actual flow test results from the previous weeks’ multi-rate flow test. The RNS went on to state that “whilst [the well will be] producing through a temporary connection, the new well flowline will be constructed to enable full plateau production this summer”.
Although the last reference to the summer has been misinterpreted by some investors as suggesting that there will be no commercial production from that well until summer, which is not at all expected to be the case, we believe that the announcements have not been misleading although the reasons require some technical understanding of how we expected clean up to proceed in the RNS of 28th March and how it actually did proceed.
During clean up operations we recovered a significant amount of drilling mud (with light base oil), but also aqueous hydrogen chloride (unspent acid), calcium chloride and trace amounts of calcium carbonate (the bridging agent), along with sand and other mineral particulate (formation). In short we had deliberately performed an intense acidization to clean the productive wellbore of an equally heavy amount of calcium carbonate, which was employed during drilling to prevent hole collapse, leading to high levels of solids in the reservoir formation around the borehole.
It only became clear quite how long it would take for these solids to dissipate during the course of the well clean up and it should be understood that they also pose a risk of damage to the processing plant if they are not managed carefully. For that reason, the new well is being introduced into production in a slow and careful fashion and earnest time has been spent in the last fortnight performing thorough and professional assesments and mitigations of any residual risks.
As of going to press, all of this equipment necessary to mitigate these risks has been procured and added to the temporary flowline and thus we stand ready to make the first attempts to flow gas into the system. Given this is material information and we are in any event obliged to update our earlier timetable of sales gas by the end of April, we will make an announcement by RNS on Tuesday 2 May on the status of the connection.