 Jester-Bloomington Gas Field Re-Development Project
The Jester-Bloomington Gas Field located in Greer County Oklahoma forms
part of a gas/oil productive trend which extends from south-western Oklahoma
through the Texas Panhandle for approximately 200 kilometres. The area
includes the Panhandle West, Panhandle, and Panhandle East Fields which together
with the northern Texas and Kansas Hugoton Fields define one of the largest
gas provinces in North America.
Gas
in the Panhandle West–Panhandle East fields is trapped in drape
structures formed over the Amarillo/Wichita Uplift, with production from
the Pennsylvanian aged Granite Wash and Permian Brown Dolomite. These
reservoirs were charged by the rapid burial and maturation of source rocks
in the adjacent Anadarko Basin and are sealed by the Late Permian aged Panhandle
Lime/Wellington Evaporite sequence. Migration of the gas/oil out of
the basin to the uplift occurred along the northern bounding fault system
that separates the Uplift from the Anadarko Basin.
Originally drilled on a 640 acre spacing the continued development of
the Brown Dolomite and Granite Wash in the Panhandle Fields has warranted
down-spacing of production wells to 20 acres. Work on the Brown Dolomite
is currently focused on identifying fracture systems and how they relate
to production trends, with this enabling the delineation of undrained compartments
that are accessible by horizontal drilling. Similarly, the highly
stratified and tight Granite Wash is seeing a surge in activity related to
down-spacing, slick water fracture treatments and the application of horizontal & inclined
drilling techniques.
The Jester-Bloomington Field, discovered in June 1959,
forms an eastern extension of the Panhandle East Field. The two reservoirs
(Brown Dolomite and Granite Wash) combined have a productive footprint of
14,200 acres and a structural footprint of 24,000 acres, with the deepest
interval completed in the field at 1,540 feet.
Brown Dolomite
The Brown Dolomite is a platform dolostone that was deposited in the northern
margin of the Permian Basin. Unlike other fields along the uplift the
Brown Dolomite at the Jester-Bloomington Field is in direct contact with
the underlying Granite Wash and is relatively thin, with a gross productive
thickness of 30 to 50 feet. Due to the lack of open-hole electric logs
the average net thickness is unknown. The best indicator of productivity
is the sparsely spaced mudlogs that show gas throughout the entire interval.
Granite Wash
The Granite Wash is an alluvial wash which was eroded from the ancestral
Wichita/Amarillo Uplift and deposited along the bordering north and south
flanks. In the vicinity of the Jester–Bloomington Field the Granite
Wash is a veneer of gabbro and granite alluvium that has a combined thickness
of 50 to 120 feet. Individual sands that make up the Granite Wash are
laterally discontinuous and interpreted to be tight. Due to the immature
nature of the sediment open-hole logs have historically been hard to interpret
and many wells were therefore open hole completed.
Within the Jester-Bloomington
Field area a total of 78 wells have been drilled and completed in the Granite
Wash, with 20 of them commingling production from the Brown Dolomite. Individual
Brown Dolomite completions number just four. Average well spacing in
the Granite Wash is over 160 acres and in the Brown Dolomite is over 640
acres.
The cumulative volume of gas produced from the field stands at 7.9
BCF of which 0.8 BCF was derived from wells completed in the Brown Dolomite
only. Peak
production occurred between 1974-1979 after which production flattened and
gradually declined until 1998 at which point the field was shut-in. Eight
inactive wells inspected in the field by a Marion representative in March
2006 had casing pressures in the range of 110 to 220 psi.; A pipeline
operated by Harlow Corporation from Amarillo, Texas and another inactive
gathering/compressor station pipeline feed into an active sales point operated
by Arkla. The majority of all surface equipment and pipelines remain
intact and ready for new tie-ins.
In August – September 2006 the first appraisal well on the Jester-Bloomington
Field was drilled. The well McAlexander#1 was planned as a short-radius
(1,000ft) horizontal into the Brown Dolomite, but drilling problems associated
with the directional equipment on the well-site resulted in Operator electing
to complete the well as an inclined (20 degree) appraisal well. Both
the Brown Dolomite and Granite Wash reservoirs were intersected with a gross
thickness of approximately 120 feet and good gas shows throughout. The Granite Wash was fracture stimulated and tested in early
November 2006, recording a stabilised flow rate of 411mcfd. The shallower
Brown Dolomite will also be fracture stimulated and tested in due course.
Expanded Project Area
Odyssey recently announced a significant expansion of the Jester-Bloomington
Gas Field Re-Development Project in Oklahoma, with the acquisition of a 33.3%
interest in a suite of exploration and production assets, including:
- 16,000 gross acres covering parts of the North Bloomington and Willow
Gas Fields in Greer and Beckham counties;
- The rights to 53 existing wells on the acreage, most of which are shut-in
or require remediation, but which currently produce in excess of 200 thousand
cubic feet of gas per day (“mcfd”), and provide an opportunity
for increased production through relatively cheap work-overs;
- Production infrastructure which includes compression facilities and 136
kilometres of pipeline and gas gathering systems which spans both the Company’s
existing and newly acquired acreage.
Coinciding with this acquisition, two shut-in wells within the original
Jester-Bloomington Project area have been acquired, worked-over and tested,
with:
- Houck#1 well recording a stabilised flow rate of 750 mcfd; and
- Travis#1 well achieving a stabilised flow rate of 280 mcfd.
Importantly for the Project, the successful testing of the Houck#1 and Travis#1
wells indicates that early production did not efficiently drain the Brown
Dolomite and Granite Wash gas reservoirs, and that the field may have re-pressured
after being shut-in for almost a decade.
This acquisition takes Jester-Bloomington Project from approximately 8,000
acres to 24,000 acres and establishes a second major project area for the
Company, following on from the substantial increase in the size and scope
of the North Helper Gas Project in Utah from 5,000 to over 27,000 gross acres
in July 2006.
The acquisition of production infrastructure which spans both the original
and expanded Jester-Bloomington Project area gives the Company immediate
access to the domestic US natural gas market and enables tie-in and gas sales
from both new and re-completed (existing) wells.”
A Letter of Intent for the acquisition has been signed between Marion Energy
Limited (ASX Code: MAE) and Harlow Corporation of Amarillo, Texas. The
total cost of the transaction is US$2 million with Odyssey’s Working
Interest 33.3%, leading to a net cost of US$0.67 million which will be funded
out of working capital. |