petroleumnews.net

Saturday
3 April 2010

PetroleumNews.net

JUPITER Energy is set to become an oil producer after confirming the J-50 well in the Mangistau Basin, Kazakhstan, as an oil discovery in the Middle Triassic carbonates.

The well intersected the Middle Triassic reservoir formation on Sunday with hydrocarbon shows indicating the presence of oil-saturated rock in the top 18m of the reservoir.

News of the discovery boosted Jupiter shares to 7.3c in early morning trade, up 10.61%.

The Middle Triassic reservoir is the primary target of the J-50 well and is the producing reservoir in the offset North Akkar oil field.

Jupiter predicts the reservoir to be 120m thick and overlapping a regional shale basement.

The company will fully evaluate the reservoir with plans to core 45m of the prognosed 120m section.

Managing director David Thorpe said Jupiters focus was to complete the well in a timely manner and begin production testing.

We are also working on preparing the tender for the J-51 well and Jupiter will announce the location of that well in the near term but clearly the positive result from J-50 may influence that decision, he said.

Jupiter will production test the J-50 well and the previous NWZ-2 wells for three months, and will apply for a trial production licence for both wells.

Production during the test may be sold to the Kazakhstan domestic oil market. Once a trial production licence has been obtained, Jupiter will be able to sell oil into both export and domestic markets.

The production test will begin once the J-50 well is completed.