Horizon Oil has farmed into a 25% interest in two concessions, offshore Gulf of Thailand. Tana Exploration Company LLC, whose majority shareholder, TRT Holdings, Inc, is also a cornerstone investor in Horizon Oil, is also farming into a 25% interest.
The interests will be earned from the operator, a subsidiary of Pearl Energy Ltd, a leading South East Asian exploration and production company. The farminees will partially funding Pearl’s share of costs from a forthcoming gas exploitation drilling program.
The concessions are Block B12/32, which contains the partially appraised Bussabong gas discovery and Block B11/38, which contains the Chang Daeng gas discovery.
The existing four wells at Bussabong and two wells at Chang Daeng have all found gas, which has been tested at rates of up to 21 million cubic feet per day.
Contingent resources, based on well data, for Bussabong range from 10 bcf to 65 bcf. Prospective reources, based on seismic analysis, for Bussabong range from 110 bcf to 610 bcf. Prospective reources for Chaeng Daeng range from 370 bcf to 1420 bcf.
These discoveries are on a regional trend which includes the giant Pailin and Bongkot gas fields. The objective of the drilling program is to prove up sufficient gas reserves at Bussabong necessary to develop the field, and to further appraise Chang Daeng.
The program will include two tri-lateral wells on Bussabong (a total of six exploration/appraisal holes) and one well on Chang Daeng. The Ensco-57 jack-up rig is currently in the prospect area and pre-loading in preparation for spudding the first Bussabong tri-lateral well later today. The full program, including rig moves, should take about 65 days to complete, according to Horizon.
The farm-in agreement also provides for the participants to pursue further opportunities in the southern Gulf of Thailand in a defined area of mutual interest, which offsets the farm-in acreage, said Horizon CEO Brent Emmett.
“Thailand has a fast-growing market for natural gas,” Emmett said.
“The existing production system is struggling to meet demand and this provides an opportunity for fields such as Bussabong to be quickly developed as satellites to existing facilities.”
Emmett said the farmin fitted Horizon’s strategic plan of participating in lower risk plays in South East Asia.
“We have two capable and experienced partners in Pearl and Tana,” he said.
“Tana has been a highly successful Gulf of Mexico explorer and sees marked technical similarities etween that area and the Gulf of Thailand – this increases our confidence.
“The concessions have several trillion cubic feet of upside gas potential in a market where demand is strong and solid prices are being paid. Services and fabrication capability are readily available in the region and there is abundant existing infrastructure in the prospect area, all of which augurs well for rapid development of reserves at a modest development cost.
“Given a successful drilling campaign, we could be into the market with significant gas production within 18 months.”
Horizon said the further joint exploration effort to be undertaken by the participants under the area of mutual interest was also very important to the company.
“We believe there is scope to exploit a very large play indeed beyond the concessions which are being acquired in this farm-in,” Emmett said.
