Kirkham Abbey30 Nov 2020 20:13
The best place to see the Kirkham Abbey carbonate formation is at, surprise -surprise, Kirkham Abbey in Yorkshire, a derelict and plundered Catholic priory which was built from the very same stone. You can touch it, examine it and if you look carefully you can see tiny, fossilised creatures embedded in it to prove it was once a deposit under the Zechstein Sea. As a limestone, it has very low porosity, so it is OK as a building material, but give it big welly with a hammer and it will fracture. So normally it’s as tight as a nematode’s chuff and the reservoir permeability only comes from massive natural invasive fractures over millions of years of geological turmoil.
So we come to the difference between the recent RNS statements of UJO and RBD about the side-track and reservoir “quality” and “characteristics” as RNSTranslater has pointed out. The quality of a reservoir is about its size and ability to produce; and the characteristics are its porosity and permeability. You cannot help thinking that the UJO RNS was massaged to avoid talking about characteristics which the operator talked about. The B1 well was drilled too far north and found a tight and poorly fractured pinch out zone with poor “characteristics” which was below prognosis and off down the slope.
The good news is that the lateral extent of the reservoir is now known beyond doubt.
As for the hydrogen euphoria, someone must be on laughing gas (NO2). There is a hydrogen steamer plant being designed for Drax power station in Yorkshire. It will take natural gas (CH4) and steam (H2O) to crack into hydrogen (H2) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The carbon dioxide will be piped offshore and buried underground via gas injection wells. It’s a big idea and will consume natural gas from the grid. It’s a long way off, just an idea. Perhaps West Newton one day will supply gas to the grid, but that is several degrees of separation in space and time from saying “Hydrogen…Bingo…UJO”
I expect that the B1-Z side-track will be more sensibly positioned to find a useful and properly fractured interval of the Kirkham Abbey. It must be tested this time otherwise they are extracting urea rather than hydrocarbons; no excuses this time.