Since Defender has been on everyone's mind lately and the conspiracy theories are off the scale, I sent Terry an e-mail last night asking him for a heads up on the gas problems and whether he was confident of getting the problem sorted. Also I asked him If he thought the well was yet to reach it's full potential. He fired back this reply inside half an hour.........
Phillip
The problem is that plunger pumps are designed for incompressible fluids such as water and oil with a low gas content but as soon as you put some gas into the mix, it causes some difficulty with closing the valves on the down stroke.The valves which are part of the mechanism allow the plunger to push fluid, but they must do that against a closed valve so if it does not close then the plunger isn't able to push. A whole science is in that stuff and I'm no expert, but it is a common problem in all of the oil plays. One way to counteract it is to keep some back pressure in the system so that the gas stays in solution.
Along with that problem, fracced wells produce sand early in their life and we think that the sand production is a big part of the problem ( abrasion and possible blockages ).
In terms of what this well will do, I think the jury is still out. I really want to see an IP of between 300 and 400 BOPD and think that we may well achieve that, however we have to prove that rate.
One other problem is that we drilled this well up dip, which puts the toe of the well higher than the heel. The thinking was that gravity would help the oil drain to the pump, however, in hindsight, the toe up well is accumulating gas in the toe and as that fills, the gas eventually finds it's way to the pump. This causes a surge which the pump cannot cope with.The next well we will reverse and put the toe down and I think this will give us a better, steady state situation.
These plays are tricky for sure and being our first well, we have learned a lot.
regards
Terry Barr
SSN Price at posting:
13.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
