Australian operator Ophir encountered 117metre net gas sands in Tonel-1, and a 55-metre gas bearing column containing 40 metres of net pay in Fortuna East-1well, which are two of the three main wells in its Equatorial Guinea 2012 drilling campaign.
The campaign began as batch drilling, with the Eirik Raude semisubmersible first drilling the top-hole sections at both Fortuna East and Fortuna West before moving to the Tonel-1 location to drill the entire well. The three probes are all in Block R. Ophir said the Tonel-1 and Fortuna East discoveries exceeded pre-drill expectations. Tonel-1 delivered “an estimated mean in-place resource of 1.1TCF(117MMBOE) and a
recoverable mean resource of 800BCF(133MMBOE)”, a clear 10MMBOE higher than prognosed. The company’s
recoverable mean resource from Fortuna East-1, by its own calculations has been estimated as 426 billion cubic feet of gas, exceeding pre-drill estimates of 304 bcf.
Ophir has since moved Eirik Raude to finalise operations on the third well, Fortuna West. The Australian company
operates BlockR with an 80% stake.
