Hurricane Energy completes Halifax well operations, initial data analysis

LONDON -- Hurricane Energy plc, the UK based oil and gas company focused on hydrocarbon resources in naturally fractured basement reservoirs, announces that operations on the 205/23-3A well (the Halifax well) are complete.

The Company can confirm that the well is an oil discovery with initial data analysis indicating Halifax is linked to the Lancaster field forming a single large hydrocarbon accumulation. 

The information below relating to the Halifax well is preliminary and will be updated following detailed analysis once the final well data and third party reports have been received and analyzed.

The principal purpose of the Halifax well was to support the Company’s view that the Lancaster Field and the Halifax prospect are one large connected structure. Well results support the Company’s opinion. The Halifax Well has successfully identified an extensive oil column, significantly below local structural closure. The reservoir interval encountered is pervasively fractured with porosities similar to those at Lancaster. The Company believes that the deeper oil down to (ODT) at 1,846 m true vertical depth subsea (TVDSS) identified in the Halifax Well, compared with an oil water contact (OWC) at Lancaster at 1,678 m TVDSS, is most likely caused by a tilted OWC.

The Halifax well was drilled and cased to 1,179 m TVDSS in accordance with the Company’s drilling program, which was designed to isolate a potential gas cap and oil bearing column to a depth of 100 m true vertical thickness (TVT) below structural closure. It was subsequently drilled to 1,801 m TVDSS and a Drill Stem Test (DST) was undertaken. However, constrained by budget, available time and the safety requirement of drilling overbalance, the well was unable to clean up and recovered only traces of formation oil to surface. The well was finally TD’ed at 2,004 m TVDSS, with no confirmed OWC encountered.

Following discussions with the Oil & Gas Authority, the Halifax well has been suspended to allow for potential future operations to either deepen and/or undertake further testing of the well, the program for which will be determined following analysis of the well results.

Preliminary third party analysis from the Halifax well indicates:

• a very significant hydrocarbon column of at least 1,156 m is present within the basement extending well below local structural closure (which is at 1,040 m TVDSS);
• that the basement reservoir below the final casing point (1,179 m TVDSS) is pervasively fractured (based on initial analysis of borehole image logs processing); and
• that porosity is consistent with that at Lancaster (based on initial petrophysical analysis).

The Spitsbergen rig has demobilized and is no longer on hire to Hurricane.