In March Shell and Todd finished drilling Kapuni-16, the first well in the middle-aged onshore Taranaki field for several years, but had released no details about the success or otherwise of the well.
Kapuni-16 was drilled to appraise and develop the productive K1 reservoirs on the eastern flank of the field and, success would have meant "substantial", unspecified additional new gas-condensate reserves.
However, Todd Energy chief executive Richard Tweedie today told EnergyReview.Net that the well had not proved as good as expected.
"There were no conclusive results; neither the geology nor the reservoir was what people had been expecting, which raises a few issues. All this is being reviewed and has impacted on Ngarewa," said Tweedie, referring to the Ngarewa-1 well, which had been the next planned exploration effort.
The partners' focus had now shifted to Patea, where site preparations had commenced for the drilling of the deviated Patea West-1 well in PEP 38737.
Tweedie said the Parker Drilling 188 rig should spud Patea West-1, a deviated well drilled from the adjacent onshore licence PEP 38760 up to 1.5km offshore into the promising large, shallow oil prospect known as Patea, before the end of the month
Todd Energy believed the Patea prospect straddled three permits, PEP 38737, 760 and Swift Energy's licence PEP 38719, which contains the Rimu and Kauri oil discoveries.
Oil has already flowed in tests of the shallow Manutahi sandstones in some of Swift Energy's Kauri wells in the 38719 licence and the Patea West location is interpreted to be on the same structural closure, but updip of these wells.
Maui, Kapuni, McKee and Mangahewa operator Shell Todd Oil Services drilled Kapuni-16 to a total depth of 4064m along hole within the Eocene-aged Mangahewa formation. Electric logging was run, as well as the setting of two cement plugs at 3740-4064m and 1260-1695m, but obviously results were not that encouraging.
Tweedie said it was now not known if or when Ngarewa-1 would be drilled. Ngarewa was to target an amplitude anomaly in the shallow Miocene-aged Mt Messenger sandstones, immediately southeast of the deeper producing Kapuni formation, and had the potential to discover up to 11 million barrels of new reserves.
