PNN Article
Tag going back for more
Neil Ritchie, New Zealand Friday, 5 November 2010
NEW Zealand-focused Canadian junior TAG Oil is planning two more exploration wells in the first half of 2011 to appraise its onshore Taranaki Sidewinder oil and gas discovery.
Earlier this week, Vancouver-headquartered TAG announced that Sidewinder-1, in the company’s 100%- controlled lease PEP 38748 (Broadside), had produced some of the strongest gas flows yet recorded from the shallow Miocene-aged Mount Messenger formation sandstones.
TAG drilled Sidewinder-1 in September to a total depth of 1601 metres and encountered oil and gas shows over a 22m gross interval, 14m net, of the sandstones.
The well subsequently flowed at stabilised rates of 8.5 million cubic feet of gas, plus 44 barrels of oil per day, during a recently completed production test.
Now TAG believes it has struck a crude oil leg with a gas cap because there was no associated condensate produced, as is typical with many Taranaki gas wells. “The data we took indicated oil, there were signs of C3, C4, C5,” chief operating officer Drew Cadenhead told PetroleumNews.net this morning, referring to the hydrocarbons butane, propane and pentane.
Cadenhead said he had several years of experience working with the Mt Messenger formation and was rather surprised to get “really nice quality oil” instead of the usual condensate.
Sidewinder oil was less waxy than that produced at TAG’s more southern Cheal oil field, with a pour point of about 11C, compared to Cheal’s 35C. Sidewinder oil also had an API of 34.
The lower pour point of Sidewinder oil would also make recovery, processing and transportation, probably to the Omata tank farm for export from Port Taranaki, easier than with Cheal crude.
Cadenhead also told PNN that TAG believed it had drilled Sidewinder-1 at the structural high point within the prospect and that was where a gas cap should be.
He said that augured well for future wells drilled to establish the extent of the field as it might be possible to avoid the gas cap and produce only quality crude.
“That’s hugely encouraging; all those are really good signs,” one commentator told PNN regarding the Sidewinder oil pour point and API.
He said the high-quality oil should mean not as much had to be spent on processing facilities as with Cheal – “that would increase the margins.