Ann: Exploration Update, page-126

Thanks for that Oiley. You may be able to shed some light on a couple of questions that have been bothering me.

We know that there is gas down there in both SE2 and SE3. In SE2 because both gas and water where coming to the surface - although the gas was not in commercial quantities. For SE3 gas was starting to replace the water which had risen to within 250 metres of the surface during testing

You mention that the pore spaces may contain 20-40% water. On testing the gas velocity near the well will be pretty high and is will carry any water with it. This gas velocity will decrease as you move away from the well so that at some distance the gas should be able to flow without disturbing the water. The question with SE2 is - is it possible that they could have got commercial volumes of gas if they had tested for longer?

Second question. SE2 has three potentially productive layers where the porosity was above a lower limit. SE3 has two. They haven't told us where they think the GWC is in either well probably because, being low salinity, they have been unable to tell it apart from the water in the drilling mud. Is there a possibility that both wells could be made to flow if they sealed off all but the highest potentially productive layer which may be above the GWC?

In asking this question physics tells me that it may not be as simple as I have implied. This is because the pressure will drop near the well as gas is extracted and may cause the GWC to rise near the well and into the top band. I understand there are methods of overcoming this but one would need more information on where the GWC is, and the porosities and permeabilities between the potentially productive layers.

Thanks in advance