What should we expect at Antelope-3 and Elk-3?

[petrengr1]

I know nothing but here is something for you to think about.

1. While waiting for the location and roads to be completed (possibly delayed by weather) they have probably been accumulating the rig/equipment at the Hou Creek Camp and Wharf (staging area) http://www.interoil.com/presentation/201...inal-1.pdf chart 17. The rig will be moved by barge from Port Moresby to Hou Creek.

2. I once had the privilege of working on a "brand new" off shore rig. It took us FOREVER to get the bugs worked out of all of the new equipment. I think we will see some of the same type problems with Rig 3. It is not new but it is new to IOC and I think much of it has been rebuilt and the rig has never worked in its present condition/format.

3. We will have a new crew that is not familiar with this rig and its equipment.

4. They will have to bring in trucks to haul all of the rig and equipment from Hou Creek to the location. I do not know if they have completed the road all the way from Antelope to Elk-3 but I doubt it. If there is no road from the South they will have to bring all of the trucks in by barge also. These trucks need to be large and especially equipped for moving the rig. They also need drivers that know how to move a rig. I expect that our trucks are not properly equipped for rig moving and the drivers have never moved a rig. All of this means delay, delay, delay.

5. Once the rig is set up I expect the drilling of the first well to take an extended amount of time to work the bugs out of the equipment and for the crew to get familiar with the rig and equipment.

[Palm]

Pet, this new rig was set up at Napa Napa and tested there per one of the presentations around the time of the AGM. Would that have helped with this "learning curve" at all? Also, I thought they said the plan for this rig is still to bring it to the original Purari wharf. From there the road is complete to Ant. I thought Hou creek was for staging of Elk 3 and anything else that might be needed for the project in that area.

[petrengr1]

Palm- I noticed that you were confused on a previous message somewhere. Rig-2 is being moved to Antelope-3 and Rig 3 is being moved in to Elk-3 through Hou Creek. (Unless it is me that is confused)

Yes, the rig up and test in Napa Napa was very important but I doubt that it uncovered all of the problems that they will find after beginning to drill. They will have to get all of the pumps and blow out preventer equipment, pipe handling equipment etc. working properly as well as all of the rig, top drive etc.

[jft310]

The new rig has not only been retrofited but has had extensive tests at Port Moresby and the crew has been trained there on this rig. This  rig is almost two years old and of course they could be some issues but the the potential bugs have been minimized with the length of the training period in Port Moresby. Will there be a shake out period well of course. The purpose behind the buy of this rig is to drill deeper and of course satisfy the govt requirement for another well. IOC is convinced that like at T-2 where they found strata of rock formations the same may be true at lower depths at Antelope. Fingers of further hydrocarbons is the hope.

[petrengr1]

Thanks Pet, the fun already starts before the drilling has begun. A quick question. Where you argue that Antelope 3 will have a similar gas column of Ant1 (which is rather massive) but the better (average) rock quality of Ant2, if that were to pan out, would the numbers (even of gas in place) not increase? Or is it that this is what the evaluators also expect, implicitly? Ant1 had 2277ft of net pay and average porosity of 8.8% while Ant2 had 1175ft of net pay but an average porosity of 14%. Having an Ant3 of 2000ft+ net pay and average porosity of 14% or so seems, well, rather massive.. Where ever I read about wells, they rarely have these kind of metrics.

[admin]

Thanks Pet. From memory, net pay at Elk1 was only 88ft, and Elk 4 only double that, I think, although (also from memory), I don't think Elk1 was drilled to full debt, considering the amount of trouble they had while drilling ("stemming the tide of the Mississippi..")

If Elk3 proves 300ft+ of net pay, that more than three times Elk1 and more than double Elk4, shouldn't that increase the numbers a notch or two? I realize it's probably low porosity rock, so not by a whole lot, but at least by some, if this pans out.

[jft310]

The new rig can drill deeper. The talk was to drill through and see if there are fingers of hydrocarbons below whats been found already. Wayne on several occasions has talked about drilling into the sandstones at Elk at conferences. If IOC can find oil the best chances they thought would be in the sandstone. The sandstones are deeper. Drill ahead and we can answer all these questions about size of the NG column type of rock and liquids.

[Getitrt2]

The new rig can drill deeper. The talk was to drill through and see if there are fingers of hydrocarbons below whats been found already. Wayne on several occasions has talked about drilling into the sandstones at Elk at conferences. If IOC can find oil the best chances they thought would be in the sandstone. The sandstones are deeper. Drill ahead and we can answer all these questions about size of the NG column type of rock and liquids.

Sounds good to me, JFT.  What about that, Pet?

[petrengr1]

Thanks Pet! With the new rig able to drill deeper than the old it will be interesting to see whether there are any nice surprises as what we have at T2. Good to hear from you and as they get drilling it will be interesting to hear your takes.

Speaking of new rig, does anyone know if it has left the yard at Port Moresby ?!?!

John- The rig was still in the yard at Port Moresby as of Oct.1, 2012

[Getitrt2]

Thanks Pet, the fun already starts before the drilling has begun. A quick question. Where you argue that Antelope 3 will have a similar gas column of Ant1 (which is rather massive) but the better (average) rock quality of Ant2, if that were to pan out, would the numbers (even of gas in place) not increase? Or is it that this is what the evaluators also expect, implicitly? Ant1 had 2277ft of net pay and average porosity of 8.8% while Ant2 had 1175ft of net pay but an average porosity of 14%. Having an Ant3 of 2000ft+ net pay and average porosity of 14% or so seems, well, rather massive.. Where ever I read about wells, they rarely have these kind of metrics.

After doing a little more research to answer a question in a "Triceratops string"  I wrote the following which I am moving here where it belongs since it is about Elk-3:

Elk-2 hit the top of the limestone at -2262 meters sub sea. The gas/water contact is at -2248 meters sub sea. I expect Elk-3 to hit the top of the limestone at about -1750 meters sub sea or roughly 500 meters higher than the gas/water contact.

The top 500 meters of rock at Elk-2 had about 103 meters of pay i.e. 2% porosity or better. The average porosity of this 103 meters of pay was 7.4% (6.6% in-situ).  I am hoping to find some porosity better than this at Elk-3 but if that does not pan out we should have at least 100 meters (328 feet) of net reservoir rock in the 500 meters (1,640 feet) of fractured limestone that we drill above the gas/water contact.

We should make a good high volume gas well and prove that we do have at least some matrix porosity in the Main Elk Fault Block. Perhaps this will be good enough to get GLJ to add a little to the resource volume.

Pet, what about Admin's question about ANTELOPE 3 (which, of course, I recognize you may be working on)?