Desire shrugs off Rachel failure

2nd Nov 2010 08:25

North Falkland explorer Desire Petroleum has been unable to glean any extra information from the 14/15-1Z sidetrack well on the Rachel prospect after failing to fix a broken wellbore."Clean out of the sidetrack has not proved possible due to mechanical failure of the wellbore and it will therefore not be possible to obtain any wireline logging data from this well," the company said Tuesday.Desire announced yesterday that wellbore stability issues had stopped the first wireline logging run from reaching target depths, and that it was gong to make another attempt.But despite the problems, data acquired during drilling operations indicates that around 25 metres of sand with oil shows was encountered. "However, in the absence of wireline logging data it is not possible to fully assess the significance of these results and, in particular, reservoir properties and the hydrocarbon saturations associated with these sands cannot be confirmed," said Desire, which is moving the drilling rig to a new location on the Rachel prospect if it can get all necessary regulatory and partner approvals in a short time frame. Chairman Stephen Phipps is disappointed, but said the data gathered has given the firm "sufficient encouragement" to drill another well on the Rachel prospect. "Following the Sea Lion oil discovery by Rockhopper Exploration, this is the second well to indicate the presence of hydrocarbons in what is now termed the east flank play fairway and gives us encouragement that further oil fields will be discovered in this area," Phipps said.Rockhopper has a 7.5% working interest in the Rachel prospect.