Gulf Keystone looking to beef up Shaikan-1

12th Jul 2010 08:25

Kurdistan-focused oil explorer Gulf Keystone is taking better equipment back to its Shaikan-1 discovery well to retest promising areas and possibly improve production prospects.The entire workover and drilling program, which could take between four and five months to complete, includes an appraisal well through the Cretaceous intervals, 50 metres to the east of the existing Shaikan-1 well.Much of the Cretaceous age interval could not be properly logged and evaluated during the initial drilling of the Shaikan-1 well due to a lack of drilling mud returns, said Gulf."Our evaluation of small portions of well logs from the initial drilling would seem to indicate that the Cretaceous intervals may hold significant quantities of recoverable oil. These oil volumes could be substantial (estimated by Dynamic Global Advisors at more than 700 million barrels of oil-in-place) and were not fully taken account of in current resource estimates."Gulf will also re-test the Butmah formation at 1,783m-1,814m and Mus formation at 1,627m-1,667m.Both zones originally lacked sufficient energy to flow to surface, but will now be re-tested using a 350 hp Electric Submersible Pump which is better at testing the inflow capabilities.The well will be completed for long term production testing in the original discovery zone, which had a natural flow rate of almost 7,500 barrels of oil per day despite the limitations of the original test equipment.