Kea's Happy Cry

This should make the UK-listed Kea a commercial producer with some significant cashflows by the end of the year.

The Wellington-headquartered company has also confirmed its confidence in the Puka lease, PEP 51153, by applying to the government for an extra 138.4 square kilometres of acreage to explore in the future, increasing the original 210.8sq.km size of the licence by more than 65%.

Kea announced overnight that additional flow tests and downhole pressure gauge data confirmed commerciality of the Miocene-aged Mount Messenger oil and gas reservoir intercepted earlier this year by the Puka-1 well.

The well achieved maximum flow rates of 310 barrels per day of waxy crude oil and 1.8 million cubic feet per day of gas.

The testing program is continuing with various choke sizes to determine the optimum production parameters for future field performance.

Drilling of Puka-2 will start as soon as possible from the Puka-1 wellsite, but deviated to test a more northerly part of the Puka Prospect. Kea estimates that area could hold gross recoverable reserves of up to 3 million barrels of oil.

A small truck-mounted Drillforce rig drilled Puka-1 as a low-cost slim hole exploration well. Kea will use a larger Drillforce rig to drill Puka-2 with a conventional larger diameter production well bore, which will allow for higher flow rates and flexibility with completion and production.

Production facilities at Kea’s Wingrove-2 wellsite, in the same lease, will be moved to the Puka-1 wellsite. This will allow testing of Puka-2 to start immediately following drilling and for production to begin at Puka-1 without delay.

Story courtesy of Energy News Bulletin.net