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phillip321, what NEN would have told you was that they were intending on doing a leak-off test.

You do this, to test the 'strength' or capability of the open section to withstand a certain amount of pressure. With this information at hand, ENI will know exactly what mud weight to use, so as not to fracture the surrounding rock and compromise well integrity.

However, in order to conducted the test you need to create an open section. Earlier this week ENI were planning on drilling this open section 30m past the 9 5/8' casing shoe that had previously been set. This is only a 1-2 day job max. The test is more about data collection, not drilling progress. A nominal amount of pressure (from the fluid injected into the open space) will be recorded, and/or 'leaked off' as a result of the fluid migrating into permeable fractures - which could be existing or newly created by the pressure. In this way they will know in advance what weight to use in order to progress.

They followed this standardised procedure in the original well, but they didn't anticipate the change in pressure at that depth nor the amount of pressure. There is only so much that pre drill seismic and LWD tools will tell you. This is exactly why you get 'kicks' - if you didn't every driller would be accurate 100% of the time. In my opinion, the original well degraded to a point where a side-track was required. We are now more the wiser.

Unfortunately I don't have time to post the other stuff now, but this coming week will be very interesting as we should have reached TVD on Sunday 1st Dec.

Ca Ngu looks to be progressing nicely, as the worst is over. The currents were a major problem for us but a lot of the push back was coming from the tool-pusher on the rig. This role exists to ensure the operator follows procedure and doesn't not compromise or damage the rig - most likely a Songa employee. In what can only be described a unbelievable, apparently the drill pipe was, at times, knocking the moonpool. I find this hard to believe, but its what happened.

Onwards and upwards from here. A lot are missing the key points in announcements and relevance to the pre-drill geology. We've got a commercial well.