Record-breaker expected to hold oil

INTEROIL’S Antelope-2 well in Papua New Guinea has flowed 705 million cubic feet of gas per day and yielded 11,200 barrels of condensate per day, breaking another world record.

 The better than anticipated results, which are equivalent to about 129,000bbl of oil per day, follows the Guinness Book of World Record certification of Antelope-1 back in March, which flowed 382MMcfd and yielded 5000bbl condensate.

The gas flow test for Antelope-2, lying 2.3 miles south of Antelope-1 and just within PPL 237 in Gulf Province, went for 30 minutes using a 6-inch capacity choke opened to 4.375in while surface flowing tubing pressure was 1258psi.

The results indicate Antelope-2 could hold enough gas to support almost two liquefied natural gas trains, but as the owner of PNG’s only oil refinery, InterOil is more excited about the potential for oil further down.

Drilling before the test reached a depth of 2260m of the planned total depth of 2525m.

InterOil president Bill Jasper told PetroleumNews.net the remaining drilling and completion work at Antelope-2 could take at least another 60 days and he expected more condensate to come, along with oil.

At 11,200bpd of condensate, Jasper said InterOil could start production in about 24 months to generate “cash flow we never dreamed of”.

But if oil is further down, Jasper said it could be barged to InterOil’s refinery in nine months.

InterOil chief executive Phil Mulacek told PNN the presence of oil was confirmed in Antelope-1 and the company would set casing to isolate the massive gas section in Antelope-2 with the view of opening it when needed for LNG.

Once the casing is complete, InterOil will drill further down to test the expected heavy condensate and then the potential oil zone underneath.

“We are going to be testing condensate over the next three weeks,” he said. “We look to test for oil by the end of the year or the first two weeks of January.”

InterOil is bringing in a specialty crew from Houston to help undertake horizontal drilling.

“We will do a horizontal well and the objective is first to test the heavy condensate then drill horizontally into the oil leg,” Mulacek said.

Horizontal drilling was going to be used in case the 6in drill bit got into an isolated tight area, while 20m away there could be great permeability in the oil zone.

Looking at the combined resources of the Antelope reef and the Elk structure, Mulacek said the latest gas flow results meant the reservoir was bigger than 6.1 trillion cubic feet and InterOil was aiming to get 8tcf for two big trains of its LNG project.

Antelope-2 also had a larger dolomite interval than Antelope-1 and better porosity.

Further modelling of the reservoir will be done while front-end engineering and design work for a stripping facility to cash in on the condensate has begun with the help of EDG Consulting Engineers.

The proposed site is on the Purari River instead of the Elk-Antelope field and is targeting recovery of 9000bpd.

Mulacek said once the company understood the saturation levels, which was expected this month, final design could start and a final investment decision was planned for the first half of 2010.

Representatives from Mitsui attended the flow test of Antelope-2 yesterday and Mulacek said they were interested in the condensate project.

As for InterOil’s LNG plans as part of the Liquid Niugini Gas consortium, the upcoming December 8 FID for the rival ExxonMobil-led PNG LNG project takes precedence for the PNG government.

Mulacek expects the government to pursue an agreement for Liquid Niugini, targeting cargoes in 2015, soon after the FID for PNG LNG.

Liquid Niugini is 52.5% owned by InterOil and 47.5% held by Pacific LNG, with the project aiming to build a 6-9 million tonne per annum LNG plant adjacent to InterOil’s oil refinery at Napa Napa.

Meanwhile, InterOil is conducting 2D seismic over a 100km area, including the Deer prospect west of Antelope-2.

The seismic is due for completion at the end of January and for processing in February.

With a cash position of $81.8 million at the end of the last quarter, InterOil has the Antelope-3 and Antelope-4 appraisal wells to drill after work is done at Antelope-2.

Antelope-3 will be 0.6 miles south of Antelope-1.

Just before the gas flow test yesterday, old hands from Weatherford, Halliburton and SGS confirmed to PNN that what they had seen in InterOil’s Elk-Antelope field, which also hosted major flows from Elk-4 last year, was beyond what they had encountered elsewhere in their decades of experience.

Jasper and Mulacek presented the Guinness Book of World Records certificate for Antelope-1 to Gulf Province Governor Havilla Kavo yesterday.

The certification was sought to counter scepticism of the well’s results.