Indo Pacific chief executive Dave Bennett said today that more oil had been recovered during a relatively short barefoot drill stem test of the Kapuni sequence during the weekend.
"It did not flow unaided to surface, but it did flow fairly steadily. No formation water was encountered, which is an excellent result," Bennett said from Wellington.
About 20 barrels were recovered and the Huinga partners were awaiting the results of the flow test, particularly pressure data, to determine what to do next. About 130m or so of the Kapuni sequence formation has been encountered above the 4390m mark. The drill stem-test (DST) tools were due to be run into the hole to test the 4370- 4428m open-hole interval.
The weekend DST could be the only test before the well is plugged and suspended and the Parker Drilling Rig 188 rig released to Shell Todd Oil Services for the drilling of a further Pohokura South well.
However, Bennett said there was a possibility the partners would be so encouraged by the test results that they would decide to deepen the hole and set 5-inch casing so more of the Kapuni sequence could be tested, including performing perforations of one or more intervals.
He agreed with industry comment that Huinga-1B was proving to be a very interesting well and, hopefully, the first commercial onshore Taranaki oil discovery from within the Kapuni sands.
The more northern McKee field flowed from the McKee sands at the top of the Kapuni sequence, while the nearby Waihapa field flowed from fractured Tikorangi limestones and the more southern Rimu-Kauri finds produced from several other formations.
Commentators are saying Huinga-1B could prove to be about the size of Waihapa or Kaimiro, containing tens of millions of recoverable liquids, but smaller than the 70 million barrel-plus McKee. "People are pretty bloody optimistic Huinga will prove commercial," said one.
Suspending the well will allow a smaller and cheaper rig to be brought on to the Huinga site at a later unspecified date to allow testing of the numerous extensive fractures encountered within the Murihiku Group metasediments basement rock.
Huinga, in licence PEP 38716, is on the eastern margin trend, the prospectivity of which has been established by the more southern onshore Rimu and Kauri discoveries, and further enhanced by the results of the recently drilled and suspended Makino-1 well.
Shares in the junior partners of the well, Pancontinental and Impress Technologies, both featured in strong trade during the day.
