Hello Linebacker11, I have seen many of your comments, but I have not yet taken the time to respond to them as I have had more important matters to attend to. You will be pleased to know, I now have ample time for you.
You wrote: "... good post ... though maybe about 2 years too late on these threads ..." (source:
71822847). This post which you are saying was "late" was in a reply to kingkev, 10/01/24, Post #: 71807874 who seemed to appreciate the post by saying "Thanks for that" (source:
71811553). Therefore it answered kingkev's question which was posted the same day as the reply. This was therefore not too late...
I understand why you are saying it though, you are trying to pretend no-one on the forum knew about this 2yrs ago? That is incorrect and unsubstantiated. I think you think that the only evidence of hydrocarbons was purely from the cuttings? This is incorrect, there were multiple kicks which had to be managed by circulating the hydrocarbons through the choke and mud degasser etc.. Therefore, visible hydrocarbons were not just seen because of cuttings, which is what I think your main point of contention is, which unfortunately for you is just incorrect.
You also wrote: "... 20K BOP on A-3 Well ?" (source:
71822847). I never wrote that, I assume you are talking about what someone else wrote in your reply to me? If you want my take on the BOP, since you were replying to me, all I can say is 1) they used a 5000psi BOP in Alameda-1 (source: 21 Dec 2021, ASX:MAY, Drilling ahead at Alameda-1
https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman-gateway/ASX/asx-research/1.0/file/2924-02469576-3A584297). Then later they said "it was decided to review ongoing activities as there was a risk that they could not be completed consistent with best practice for well control" and "called for the installation of the 10kpsi BOP" (source: 4/01/2022, ASX:MAY). However, even then their mud weight control might not have been spot on since they had the following happen: "paused after encountering a high pressure zone resulting in an influx of hydrocarbons
into the wellbore and subsequent strong oil shows on the shakers." (source: 9 Mar 2022, ASX:MAY, Alameda-1 Hydrocarbon influx into wellbore) This one sentence alone is like a freight train hurtling towards the share price during the flow testing of the Marti reservoir in my opinion. Can you imagine at a depth of 3,769mMD what the pressure is required to be in order for a kick at this depth is to occur? They then said: "The hydrocarbons are being managed by circulating through the choke and mud degasser and then flared." (source: source: 9 Mar 2022, ASX:MAY, Alameda-1 Hydrocarbon influx into wellbore).
Anyone who knows oil and gas drilling knows this is a kick:
source:
https://www.osha.gov/etools/oil-and-gas/drilling/well-control-blowout-preventersThen... even after they increased the mud weight to 1.88sg, they still had "before these plans could be put into effect, however, at 3,916mMD another stronger influx of hydrocarbons
into the wellbore made it necessary to shut in the well whilst a higher mud weight was built up. After consulting with our partners and the regulators, it was agreed that calling total depth on the Alameda-1 well was the necessary and prudent course of action to take to maintain agreed safety margins to preserve the interval thus far encountered." (source: 17 Mar 20221, ASX:MAY, Total depth called for Alameda-1).
Clearly, they were in a danger zone in terms of safety. You cannot just keep increasing the mud weight forever, by this time it was unlikely they had unlimited materials to do so. They also would have benefited from a different well design, such as Alameda-3. The bottom line is, the BOP is the least of their worries. The real worry is the pressures in the lower sheets which kept causing kicks. Since you don't form whole sentences and grammatically correct suppositions I have to assume you take issue with oil being visibly detectable on the shakers as a "good sign for the likelihood of positive appraisal tests in my opinion"?
Firstly we need to establish what the appraisal tests are going to do, for example: "Within the evaluation process, the risk considered is geologic risk; i.e., the risk that a producible hydrocarbon accumulation exists. We consider a producible accumulation to be one capable of testing a stabilized flow of hydrocarbons. Geologic risk is assessed by considering the probability that the following four independent factors of the play concept exist.
1) Presence of mature source rock (Psource)2) Presence of reservoir rock (Preservoir)3) Presence of a trap (Ptrap)4) Play dynamics (Pdynamics)""The Probability of geologic success (Pg) is obtained by multiplying the probabilities of occurrence of each of the four factors of the play concept.Pg= Psourcex Preservoirx Ptrapx PdynamicsIf any of these probability factors is zero, the probability of geologic success is zero. Geological success is defined as having a sustained, stabilized flow of hydrocarbons on test."
source: https://web.archive.org/web/19970724193506id_/http://www.geobyte.com:80/julpdf/otis.pdf Robert M. Otis and Nahum Schneidermann, July 1997, A Process for Evaluating Exploration Prospects. AAPG Bulletin V. 81 No. 7, P 1087-1109.Does the fact there are visible hydrocarbons on the oil shakers (as there was on 02/11/21) increase or decrease the geologic risk? I would argue it makes it more likely there is an occurrence of 1) source rock, (the hydrocarbons had to come from somewhere, usually from source rock) 2) reservoir rock, (more likely to be reservoir rock if hydrocarbons are present) thereby lowering geologic risk.
I believe we need a flow test to check for trap (is it sealed completely, I believe both 2D and 3D are not sufficient to determine this alone), and timing or dynamics (is the migration pathway still intact).
Overall yes, the presence of hydrocarbons on the shakers is a good sign for the likelihood of positive appraisal tests in my opinion.