ADX turning drillbit to right for Anshof-2 appraisal | The West Australian

ADX turning drill bit to right for Anshof-2 appraisal.

Andrew DuffySPONSORED

Tue, 14 November 2023 5:22PM

ADX Energy has spudded the Anshof-2 appraisal well in Upper Austria, escalating its plans to test the field’s current best estimate gross reserves of 5.2 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe).

The company says success at the well may extend the field’s reserves base towards the independently estimated high-side of 26 MMboe should a deeper-field oil-water contact be supported by drilling data. The well be the second drilled in the field by Austrian locals RED Drilling & Services – the same contractor that successfully put down the nearby Anshof-3 discovery well in January last year.

Anshof-3 was a vertical well and penetrated the crest of the subsurface oil-containing structure to hit an oil-water contact equating to a closure of 6.5 square kilometers and the related 5.2 MMboe 2P field reserves.

Anshof-2 will be drilled to appraise the depth of the “oil down to” level seen by Anshof-3. It will be drilled as a vertical hole, which will build angle to 79 degrees (nearly horizontal) to intersect about 280m of flat-lying Eocene-aged reservoir at a cut point 1.8km from the Anshof-3 penetration point, in an area where seismic data suggests better reservoir quality.

The company says it hopes Anshof-2 will provide data to support a reserve upgrade to as high as 26 MMboe for the field, which represents the current combined 3P reserves and 3C resource volumes. Management says success at Anshof-2 may also allow it to move reserves from the currently low-side gross estimate (1P) of 0.5 MMboe into the 2P classification, topping up the current best estimate.

Oil and gas drilling is different to that typically seen in mineral exploration. Namely, the wells are drilled and cased in sections, with each section incremental smaller with depth, resulting in a tapered hole. Drilling operations are generally also slower than in the world of mineral exploration.

At Anshof, future operations will include the drilling of the 17½-inch (444 mm) diameter hole to 130m, pulling out of the hole and running the 13½-inch (344 mm) steel casing in the hole to the bottom. After cementing the casing in place, a 12¼-inch diameter drilling assembly will be run inside the casing and will drill ahead to the end of that hole section.

Management says it plans to keep Anshof-2 as a producing well, bringing it online to feed the permanent production facility (PFF), which will be installed at the surface in February next year. The company says it expects the well to deliver about 300 barrels per day to total field production with an ultimate well recovery of 0.8 MMbbls.

The company says the PFF will provide ample capacity for it to efficiently and rapidly scale up the Anshof field development, including the Anshof-1 well planned for drilling in next year’s second or third quarter.

The project is within the ADX-AT-II license in Upper Austria and is managed through the Anshof discovery area partnership. Financial interest sits at 50 per cent for ADX, 30 per cent for MND Austria and 20 per cent for Xstate Resources. Xstate has opted not to participate in Anshof-2, but has the option to buy back in later at a premium of 400 per cent to the well cost.

As the drill bit turns to the right at Anshof-2, the market will have a six-day wait for the next update.