The pressure they have encountered will require a mud weight of about 13ppg to balance the well and probably 13.5 ppg to drill safely ahead . That is a high mudweight but many wells get drilled safely with higher mudweights than that in many places in the world . The problem is they are near the pressure limit of the rigs pressure control equipment so controlling gas kicks is a potential problem.
As they say they could not see the fault on seismic so a side track dose not really solve anything . The gas has come up from the lower levels and has charged a 6m section that has some permeability within the shale. It is not clear if they have drilled into the fault or just a sand that that has been charged by the fault.
There is no guarantee that the 6m zone has the porosity or permeability or extent to support commercial production.
There is both good and bad news here and a lot of unknowns. The good news is that there is or has been gas at a deeper levels and that the fault is largely gas charged. The bad news is that if the anomalously high pressure is due to the fault mechanism they propose that the lower target reservoirs may have lost some of their gas. It also says nothing as to the quality of the lower reservoirs either. So still a lot to find out about this well that will only will be determined when the target sands are drilled logged and tested.
If their fault theory is right as they drill deeper they will probably get progressively overbalanced as they get deeper. That will slow penetration rates and has the potential to cause differential sticking as they get into the lower reservoirs.
They have a potentially record flow rate well to drill before they get to back to this well though.
WGO Price at posting:
23.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
