Offshore staff
LONDON – InfraStrata has issued an update on its exploration plans for a license offshore southern England.
The P1918 permit, offshore and adjacent to the Dorset coast, covers 584 sq km (225 sq mi) over the Wessex basin. The company was awarded a 78% operating interest this February.
To date seven wells have been drilled by previous operators within the license area, including the UK’s first UK offshore well in 1963 on Lulworth Banks. Six had oil or gas shows and three flowed oil or gas on test. Within and next to the license area there are also numerous active oil and gas seeps.
The current partners have purchased 3,500 km (2,175 mi) of existing 2D seismic data, and three existing 3D surveys, over and around the acreage. Geosolutions is performing the interpretation. In light of technology advances and higher petroleum prices, the partners hope to develop one of the existing discoveries profitably and then proceed to appraise the area’s full potential.
The focus of interpretation has been on the offshore extension of thePurbeck prospect, an anticline in the east of the license, updip of the Southard Quarry-1 onshore well, drilled in 1989, which encountered petroleum in Jurassic and Triassic reservoirs.
New mapping of Purbeck shows that it covers an area of roughly 13 sq km (5 sq mi) at the primary target level, much of this within the P1918 license. Prospective resources for the primary Triassic Sherwood sandstone objective could be 100 bcf (2.8 bcm) recoverable.
An appraisal well is needed to test the productivity of the reservoir at a subsurface depth of 2,500 m (8,202 ft). This well will also evaluate two Jurassic reservoirs where oil was encountered in Southard Quarry-1.
InfraStrata will reprocess 250 km (155 mi) of 2D data to further define the subsurface target location for the new well, which would likely be drilled directionally from an onshore location to the offshore within block 98/11.
The partners expect to submit a planning application early in 2013, and aim to start drilling before the end of next year, subject to consents and funding.
11/26/2012
