GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration Inc has com­plet­ed drilling the Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1 ex­plo­ration well on the Or­toire ex­plo­ration block, on­shore in T&T, not­ing that it en­coun­tered sig­nif­i­cant hy­dro­car­bon ac­cu­mu­la­tions based on drilling and wire­line log da­ta.

The com­pa­ny said wire­line logs in­di­cat­ed nat­ur­al gas pay to­talling ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,315 net feet in four unique thrust sheets in the Her­rera sands from a depth of 5,455 feet to to­tal depth.

Drilling was sus­pend­ed pri­or to the planned to­tal depth of 10,600 feet due to high pres­sure gas zones en­coun­tered while drilling, the com­pa­ny said.

The Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1 ex­plo­ration well was spud on Oc­to­ber 27.

Paul R Baay, pres­i­dent and CEO, not­ed that he was pleased the Or­toire block con­tin­ues to out­per­form ex­pec­ta­tions.

“The Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1 well is the best well we have drilled on the Or­toire prop­er­ty to date and it has pro­vid­ed three key pieces of in­for­ma­tion, pri­mar­i­ly that the Cas­cadu­ra field has nu­mer­ous tar­gets with each one of the thrust sheets pro­vid­ing its own unique op­por­tu­ni­ty,” Baay said.

He added it has al­so shown that the sys­tem is hy­dro­car­bon charged and that in time the com­pa­ny will re­quire more drilling horse­pow­er to eval­u­ate the deep­er zones.

The com­pa­ny’s CEO James Shipk said the Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1 ex­plo­ration well con­firms that this is a unique struc­ture with tremen­dous po­ten­tial.

“Al­though we were un­able to drill to our planned to­tal depth, the in­for­ma­tion gath­ered while drilling and the hy­dro­car­bon ac­cu­mu­la­tions en­coun­tered are tru­ly ex­cep­tion­al.

“Not on­ly did we en­counter a mas­sive sec­tion of tur­bidite de­posits near­ly 3,000 feet thick, we es­tab­lished the in­ter­me­di­ate thrust sheet as a vi­able reser­voir and ex­pand­ed the known bound­aries of the sands test­ed in the Cas­cadu­ra-1ST1 well,” Shipk said.

The Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1 well is the fourth of the amend­ed five well ex­plo­ration com­mit­ment un­der Touch­stone’s Or­toire Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Li­cence.

The com­pa­ny has an 80 per cent work­ing in­ter­est in the li­cence but is re­spon­si­ble for 100 per cent of the drilling, com­ple­tion and test­ing costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the ini­tial five ex­plo­ration wells. Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd holds the re­main­ing 20 per cent work­ing in­ter­est.