An Amity Oil statement this morning said there was a volume of proppant left in the hole after the first frac that needed to be removed before the temporary plug can be set and the second frac initiated.

“Current planning predicts the second frac to be started early next week. It is still too early to make a prediction of the relative success or failure of the overall program,” said the company.

The planned fracturing program will be conducted over five sandstone sequences starting from the bottom zone and progressing individually to the uppermost zone.

It said the next report will be Friday, August 6th unless an earlier report is warranted.

Due to the formation damage that water-based drilling fluids previously caused, the fluid used for fracturing is diesel fuel based. Whilst this adds considerable cost to the operation, it is unlikely to react with the formation and inhibit the gas flow. Diesel fuel will be pumped into the formations at very high pressures until the fractures are initiated and pumping will continue until the fractures propagate to about 100 metres from the well bore.

Amity said each zone will take about five days to frac and cleanup, and a final clean up flow from all the zones together will be conducted for at least four days after the frac operation is complete.

A very hard and coarse grained proppant will be pumped into each fracture during the operation to hold the fractures open after the pressure is released. This methodology is being used successfully overseas, particularly in the United States to induce commercial production from reservoirs with low permeability.