Member Info for KeithOz

@O & W. Yes, it was suggested that flow testing MOU-4 before drilling MOU-5 should be performed, and I had mentioned this myself in the second paragraph of my post yesterday at 00.33 as being a good idea. What I was responding to this morning was specifically the statement I quoted ""If the carbonates fail to flow gas [in MOU-4 Jurassic], then don’t drill mou 5, so a cheapie risk."

I repeat my belief that MOU-5 should definitely be drilled irrespective of the presence of gas in the Jurassic carbonates in MOU-4, for which I gave my reasons. I find it odd that someone should suggest otherwise, apparently only to save some money, especially since given the expenditure already that I detailed, that saving would not be very much.

If you sincerely believe it would not be a good idea to drill MOU-5, please ring +212 5377-65400 and ask for the nice Mr Mohammed. He speaks English very well and may remember me from when he was working in his previous job in Brussels in the 90's. Explain why you don't think it is in his interest for Morocco to become self-sufficient in gas for industrial power, electricity generation, fertiliser production and cement production. Remember he has vast personal investments in some of these areas, and will need to maintain economic growth in order to ensure social stability, thus avoiding a 'Moroccan Spring' that would terminate his family's relevance. Explain that it is good for the country to continue to import very high-priced gas from Spain, and to wait years & years for offshore production of indigenous gas. Please post his response here, if there are not too many ******s involved.

Changed the thread header to make it more relevant. Another opinion on drilling the Jurassic, I have referred to Caterham7's expertise last weekend - he posted 13th July 2023 07.21 - " I have worked in O&G Exploration for over 30 years. I think the Jurassic test has potential to be one of the most globally significant discoveries of the last decade."

While on MOU-5, here's a correction: my apologies, I mistakenly said last week that SV-101 is specced to 2000m. It is actually 3000+m, so if there is a will to drill MOU-5 down into the Triassic, there is certainly a way. Here's the specification sheet:

https://starvalleydrilling.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Rig-Specifications-101-.pdf

"If the carbonates fail to flow gas [in MOU-4 Jurassic], then don’t drill mou 5, so a cheapie risk."

MOU-4 was at the extreme down dip edge of the structure. MOU-5 is at the culmination of the structure, 250m up dip. One reason there may be no gas in the Jurassic in MOU-4 is because it is just below the gas / water contact, and there is a gas column of (only!) 245m in the 177km² structure.

A rig booking fee will have been paid, wellhead, casing, cement & all other consumables are in the warehouse, EIA has been given, pad construction appears to have started.

It would be plain nuts not to drill MOU-5.

This is not a forecast. It is merely 'white noise' which Oily & others can safely ignore. On 14th March at the Proactive presentation, Paul mentioned the licence extension, a necessary precursor for Sandjetting, and that it was expected in 3 - 4 weeks. SJ equipment, team & CTU were all to be available by end April. He then announced on 1st May that the extension 'had been ratified', although no date was given for the event - it could have been weeks earlier. That announcement was 6 weeks after the Proactive presentation, so approval was a maximum of 2 or 3 weeks later than expected. This could mean that if we are to be told the plans for testing, it should be this week. Unless they have decided to screw up the casino players by starting already, which some of us would find very amusing.

They may start on MOU-4 for 2 reasons - lack of formation damage and further info on the Jurassic in order to fine tune MOU-5. However, priority will be given to the most likely source of the initial CNG - this is the shallow overpressured gas, including that behind the two layers of casing in MOU-3, which they have stated they can penetrate with SJ. In this respect I would think that they will also want to look at the potential of the upper part of MOU-1, which appeared to have biogenic gas over a column of several hundred metres. Finally, testing the MOU-Fan in at least two wells will give an indication of the volume of the largest potential reservoirs - MOU-3 is the monster here. Paul has suggested that this will be more gas than is needed for CNG, but volumetric results will nevertheless be needed to feed into the acquisition discussions. I do not expect any results until the conclusion of the testing - all data will need to be checked and integrated, and info from more than one well would be preferable for volumetric calculations. Everything will then need to be checked and approved by ONHYM, and given the potential importance, probably also approved at a higher level.

Neither white noise nor silence necessarily indicate inactivity.

Here's some history that may be of interest.

1. The Institute of Petroleum Journal, 1936: Vol 22, p 239:

"At Tizeroutine, in Taza, a seepage of very light oil occurs in a complex of Eocene—Cretaceous folds, and geological studies and some shallow drilling have been accomplished. One well has reached a depth of 700 m., but the work is now suspended. The first real encouragement was obtained when the well “ Tselfat 26" gushed in 1926."

This is MOU-NW, on PRD's licence area.

2. Dunstan's Science of Petrology, 1938, p. 186:

"North Africa. Seepages are known in the Earache district of Spanish Morocco, and are common in the triangular region, mainly in French Morocco, formed by Earache, Tizeroutine, and Meknes [partly within PRD licence area] ...... In 1934 a well on the broken, elevated Djebl Tselfat structure gave 250 tons of oil per day, but further work has shown the productive area to be limited to 120 acres, and to be partly water-flooded. The productive horizon is a Triassic limestone which appears to be or to have been oil-bearing over an area of at least 16 miles by 12 miles. Research has largely eliminated the possibilities of much oil in beds younger than the Jurassic, and efforts are being concentrated on finding Triassic limestones or older beds under suitably sealed conditions. The types of structure under investigation include folds with the Domerian crest near the surface; deeper crests beyond the frontal faults, and Triassic structures beneath discordant Cretaceous beds. The last group is of considerable importance, for this concealed condition obtains in about three-quarters of the suitable area in northern Morocco."

The exploration work referred to was stopped the following year (1939) due to the outbreak of WW2.

I mentioned the Giant (3.5 billion Bbl of oil, equivalent to 21 TCF gas) Midway-Sunset oilfield in California. I've put a chart on X showing how it has developed from humble beginnings in 1899 through to the present day. Rome was not built in a day, neither will be Guercif.

https://twitter.com/KQuick20704342/status/1789598569487532064

Sorry, forgot to add that the faulting seen in the MOU-Fan is more of the nature of fault zones rather than individual fault planes. These are very likely to act as feeder zones, acting as conduits for gas to all potential reservoirs abutting these zones. The fault zones do not reach the surface, being sealed by deposition of later impervious rock layers before the gas migration began. Even if minor faulting is present, not discernible by seismic, this may not result in compartmentalisation, but may in fact increase the likelihood of the whole thick succession being connected both vertically and laterally.

Part 2.

* Thin beds. I suspect many will be a little surprised about the potential gas charge of thin reservoir beds – those of one metre or less. There appear to be very many of these turned up in the rock chips, but seismic has insufficient resolution to show them. There is plenty of gas in equivalent thin beds in the Rharb basin to the west, but in the MOU-Fan there are not only more of them in a greater overall thickness of sediments, but they are of very considerable lateral extent. I am not aware of any evidence of significant compartmentalisation by minor faulting as has been suggested here – there appear to be two significant faults that divide the MOU-Fan into three large compartments, which have been penetrated by MOU-2, -3 & -4 respectively. Each of these drills will have gone through multiple thin reservoir beds.

With regard to lateral extent, I suggest you read the post by Caterham7 on 29th June 2023. He knows more about turbidites than everybody else on this board put together, having specialised in these deposits over several decades working for industry majors. I have edited it here slightly for brevity:

“Examples of sub-meter sands proven to be laterally continuous over many kilometres, are observable in both field outcrops and field well databases. Good examples can be read in this very nice paper, starting at bottom of page 37.

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/131925/7/1-s2.0-S0264817218302551-main.pdf

it is proven that turbidite thickness and lateral connectivity are controlled by the complex interplay of the following variables (rather than “the size of the event”)

1. Is the turbidite system sand rich (low efficiency) or mud rich (high efficiency)? Remember that the finer grained sands generally found in thinner beds will travel further, ie, classic Bouma sequence.

2. The volume and energy of the turbidite flow (commonly referred to as the ‘stroke’)

3. Where abouts in the fan lobe are you measuring the thickness? A non-tabular turbidite bed will feather and thin toward the lobe margins.

4. How confined is the basin floor on which the turbidite is deposited? An unconfined basin will let the lobes spread laterally for great distances, resulting in better developed marginal thin-bed facies.

Lots of public domain literature on Google, giving many examples of thin bed turbidites with immense lateral continuity.

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/199293397.pdf

https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/82011/3/Puasa-I-2018-PhD-Thesis.pdf

If you want to better understand the geology of turbidites, I highly recommend exploring the extensive outcrops of Arnot Basin (France), Tabarnas Basin (Spain), and Karoo Basin (South Africa). I have taught Turbidite field classes in all locations, and I used to teach classes in deep-water depositional systems for a major oil company whose logo is the Pecten Shell.”

Part 1.

I've just skimmed through a week or so of posts, and think it appropriate to make a couple of comments. For the anally retentive, this is all only my opinion, and I recognise that my geology degree and practical O & G experience are increasingly outdated. If you disagree with my opinions, feel free to say why and quote some references in support of your views.

* Gharwar nonsense. Nowhere has GRH suggested that Guercif is a second Gharwar in size, nor likely to be anything approaching it. The mention was clearly in relation to the time taken to recognise the scale of Gharwar – this holds true for almost every large field - for example the two largest oilfields in N. America, Midway-Sunset & Kern River, were both discovered in the 19th century but took almost a further century for their full scale to be determined. It appears that GRH has been deliberately misquoted by the usual suspects, whose agenda is to ridicule knowledgeable posters and confuse the unwary.

* Giant Field. It is generally accepted that a 'Giant' field is one with recoverable oil greater than 500 MMBbl oil / 3 TCF gas. I think this is achievable for Guercif, but of course in line with the above, it will take some years to prove it up. I suspect the MOU-Fan & MOU-NE could provide the 3 TCF on their own. Paul has stated they know of another 19 prospects. One of these is a MOU-NE lookalike, which actually produced a substantial quantity of oil in the 1920's, before running into technical problems that they could not resolve given the early stage of the industry. Given the stated intention of prove up & sell off this year, it is obvious that most of the resource definition will be carried out by the purchaser over the next decade or so, hence the importance of PRD retaining stub equity or a royalty.

Triassic potential. The TAGI sands are one of the main oil & gas reservoirs across North Africa. Sound's Tendrara (discovered by Paul Griffiths) is Triassic. Much of the Guercif basin is underlain by Triassic, but exploration is currently limited by depth – the SV-101 rig is specced to 2000m, the Triassic is deeper than that in most places – except for underneath MOU-NE. As suggested, some hydrocarbon charge my come laterally from younger Jurassic source rocks where there has been vertical displacement. If you look at this ONHYM report, relating to the Guercif Basin from p.12 onwards: https://hydrocarbons.onhym.com/sites/all/themes/hydrocarbure/images/pdf_onshore/Hydrocarbon%20Exploration%20Opportunities_Onshore.pdf

you will see that high levels of organic carbon are found in Ordovician & Silurian shales, and these been sufficiently buried to be mature for oil which would migrate into the overlying Triassic (and also Carboniferous which exists over part of the Guercif licences). So two or three possible sources for Triassic hydrocarbons.

I have a simple philosophy - if people are nice and polite to me, I will be polite and helpful in return. If they poke at me with a sharp stick, I will take it from them and smack them over the head with it. A distinct improvement in this board today, long may it remain so.

@TheBold. To be 'official', it would need to be in an ITR or CPR, which cost a lot of time and money to produce. In my opinion, and I recall that of Jimmy's, the ITR was conservative in the extreme. See Appendix D for details - as an example of under-selling MOU-NE, they used as base case the porosity and thickness seen in TAF-1X, drilled 50km away into different rock type in a different structure - (8% and 18m respectively, I would expect 15+% and 250m. Jimmy in his post below suggested that source (and presumably also charge) to be already proven. If that is the case, removing just those two risks immediately raises the gcos to 32%. For balance. my main concern with this prospect remains that carbonate reefs can have variable reservoir characteristics, and a single borehole may not be representative of the whole structure. I have previously said here that I would not sell any shares until the earlier of 1. Paul effectively selling them for me by selling out of Morocco, or 2. after at least 4 holes had been drilled into MOU-NE. That is still my intention, but of course that should not necessarily be anyone else's plan.

@Jimmy. The 12% gcos for MOU-5 was derived from the following %age risks: 0.45 reservoir x 0.56 sourcing x 0.65 migration x 0.71 trap & sealing. Given that the most recent study gives a thick layer of source rock directly under and in contact with the carbonate bank and as part of the same anticlinal structure, that reduces the risk of both sourcing and migration. The multiplier effect of reducing two of the four risk factors is considerable.

Let me try to summarise some off-board discussions concerning the odd apparent timing of drilling rig use. Given that of the four companies using SV-101, only PRD actually had some kind of prepaid contract, it would reasonably be expected that PRD would get first pick. So why is there now a possibility of last go? The following is not a prediction, just a possible viewpoint.

You may recall in the Proactive presentation that Paul showed a new view of the MOU-5 prospect, including for the first time a thick layer of oil & condensate-prone source rock directly underlying the Jurassic carbonate bank. (As an aside, these recent source-rock studies greatly increase the gcos over that suggested in the January ITR). Beneath that is rock of Triassic age. The Triassic is the main reservoir for oil & gas across the whole of North Africa, including as near as Sound's Tendrara. Field work has been ongoing in the Guercif region looking at outcropping strata on the margins of the basin, with the aim of understanding the complete geological sequence beneath the centre, in particular under the MOU-NE prospect, and where in that sequence the best reservoirs are most likely to be found. Paul has said that he was going to Morocco two weeks ago to finish off this work - which would give reason not to want to start drilling MOU-5 just yet.

If, as is likely, the Triassic beneath MOU-NE is thought to be a suitable reservoir for hydrocarbons, it would be a missed opportunity not to drill a bit deeper than the 1450m previously announced. So what would be the plan?

* SandJet MOU-1, -3 & -4, flow & pressure test. Announce the results together with a definitive agreement with Afriquia Gas.

* Use the increased share price to facilitate a small capital raise.

* Apply the proceeds to drilling & testing an augmented MOU-5, bearing in mind the additional cost of an extra 500m (the SV-101 has a 2000m capacity) and the complications of separating gas, condensates & oil for flow testing.

Having added value, you have increased opportunity for obtaining a good sale price – either as a complete sale of the local Moroccan subsidiary, or else as separate components: a CNG operation with predictable cashflow; a G2P / G2EU future operation, and an oil operation.

TheBold claims to know more about drilling and rigless testing than anyone else on this board, and more than Lonny & Moyra, who together have drilled more successful wells in Morocco than everyone else put together in the whole of exploration history. I demonstrated that his knowledge is plagiarised from other sources, and that he is utterly lacking in credibility, which is why he has had the thread deleted. So, a re-post is in order:

"Today you are claiming expertise in all matters relating to drilling and testing.

Six weeks ago, on 19th March at 16.24 you asked "Hi, can you advise What’s geology got to do with wellbore fluid invasion and reservoir damage, does that change with the geology ? Ie is it easier or harder to fix in certain rock types ?"

At 15.14 the same day you posted detailed information indicating your knowledge of perforation techniques. Out of curiosity, I copied your post and pasted it into Google. The result was this: https://petrowiki.spe.org/Perforating_methods

You have just copied direct from Petrowiki, changing a few words here and there to make it look like your own work. Hardly surprising that you continued to get things wrong throughout your 19 posts yesterday, having to amend them on multiple occasions when you were corrected by others who actually do know what they are talking about."

@Androcles - 100% correct. I am genuinely curious about some people's claim of vast personal experience. Just because they use some big words does not make them knowledgeable. Quite bizarre to think you would use Sandjet to "remove the well bore debris and gunk" - indicative of dangerous ignorance.

@Jimmy - I'm delighted that our views on timing are at least converging - just 2½ hours ago you were at 'a few months', now it's 'a couple of months'.

There are some here who are continuing their effort to undermine this company. Today the theme is that "it will be months before the start of the SandJet programme". Let's take a look at the timing.

On 14th March (just 7 weeks ago from tomorrow) we had an RNS of presentation slides in the morning, live presentation in the evening. At 6m10s Paul says (with reference to the licence extension) "We expect approval within 3 or 4 weeks" and "We're happy with the regulatory process in Morocco". Slide 3 shows that "Sandjet ready to mobilise in April 24" and "Coiled Tubing Unit available by end April 24." This is confirmed verbally, and we are told the CTU is being sourced from Italy, so none of the previous nonsense with Tunisian Customs.

Historically, PRD management have only informed the market (i.e. us) on the issuance of licence extensions retrospectively, not on the day of award as some here seem to expect. The licence extension could have been granted within the timeframe stated by Paul - that means it could have been issued 3 or 4 weeks ago, which would mean everything is on track as stated in March.

The worst case is that the licence extension was only issued yesterday; if so. that would mean we are running at most 3 weeks behind schedule. As others have said here today, PRD management will have been maintaining a dialogue with ONHYM on this matter, so they will have been kept informed of progress through the ministerial signoff process, and will have a very good idea of timing. That timing will of course have been discussed with the providers of the SJ gear and the CTU.

Paul also mentioned during the presentation about Customs issues, and that management were dealing with this proactively. Some here would like you to believe that this something that Paul & Lonny are just starting to think about. I would expect that everything possible has already been procured and is on site or at the Guercif warehouse - including the abrasive sand, which although more expensive than the stuff at your local builders' merchants, is hardly an item that will break the bank if bought in advance of licence extension approval.

In summary, we are most likely on track with the SandJet programme, at worst running 3 weeks behind schedule. I cannot see that there is any justification for the 'months away' agenda being pushed on here by the usual suspects.

Half of Trinity's total production is onshore, from six old oilfields that would benefit from CO2EOR. Five of those just happen to be adjacent to Cory Moruga, where we just happen to be in partnership with TXP, the new owner of these assets.

"prd seems to have a poor history of getting timely regulatory approvals in Morocco."

I suggest a more accurate rendering is that "exploration companies in Morocco seem to have a poor history of getting timely regulatory approvals in Morocco." If you take a look at the SOU RNS this morning, you will see that they applied for an 18-month extension to their exploration permit in December 2022. 16 months later, they have approval - of sorts - but still awaiting Ministry sign-off with only 2 months of the 18 left to run. To be fair, they have also arranged a further extension with ONHYM, but again, this still does not have official ministerial sign off.

To intimate that these delays are the sole fault of PRD management is clearly misleading.