drilling to commence, page-15

John

When drilling O&G wells, mud is used to maintain the integrity of the well bore and lubricate the drill bit, the weight of this mud/lubricant can be ajusted by adding stuff to it to account for different pressures encountered in the various formations

Amonst other things one of its main functions is to hold back anything in the formations like water and hydrocarbons from entering the well bore.

Basically the gas bearing sands were so over pressure the mud weight that the gas infiltrated the well bore and came back to surface.

The mud is pumped down the drill string comes out of the drill bit and flows back up the hole, is collected, remediated and pumped back down the drill string.

Its a good thing, cause as well as the hydrocarbons being there it suggests that the gas bearing formations have not been damaged and will flow once the well casing is perforated.

If you go back and read the original drill plans they hoped not to have to use mud as it was thought to damage the formations in this area and was responsible for some non productive wells, from memory this was more of a problem in the ellenburger than the canyon sands.

Given we dont know the mud weight its hard to predict what sort of flows were looking at with those %'s but obviously the company believes their good enough as they would not be continuing this development work.


Hope this helps