Nuenco said the joint venture was waiting on a pipeline easement from AERA, while further work was needed on potential gas volumes.
As a result, the joint venture plans to bring forward further testing of the Jack Hamar 2-13 and 3-13 gas wells, which produced initial flows of 2.9 million cubic feet per day, and begin testing on Jack Hamar 2-1 before connecting to the pipeline.
“It is disappointing to see further delays now with the pipeline. Estimates on how long these will be are being defined now and we will report as better information comes to hand,” Nuenco managing director Anthony Kain said.
“We will be doing all we can to reduce these delays and are pleased to note now that this will not effect the further testing of existing wells, so we can begin constructing an independent view on the oil and gas reserves contained in the South East Lost Hills blocks.”
Nuenco said it has also started full-scale fraccing of Jack Hamar-1-1 in California to stimulate oil and gas recovery from the Monterey shales.
“Work completed to date has clearly indicated the Monterey is hydrocarbon charged and the importance of this frac program is to start to work out recovery rates from the oil and gas in place,” Kain said.
“At this stage we have a fracture, which is communicating with the formation and to this point the well has flowed well.”
He said within two hours, Jack Hamar-1-1 had pushed about 350 barrels of the frac gel and sand injected into the formation back up the tubing to fill the tank on-site. The well was then shut-in and the surface pressure rose quickly, Kain said.
“Another tank was put on location Saturday, and…we continued to flow the well to try and clean it up with a test separator and flare so we can begin gauging the flow,” he said.
Kain said geological mapping of the joint venture’s recent expansion of the South East Lost Hills project had forecast this increased acreage contained more than 50 million barrels of in-place oil.
Current participants in the Jack Hamar Gas Field Project are: Nuenco LLC (50%); and Orchard Petroleum Inc (50%). Interests in the Deeper Jack Hamar Monterey Oil and Gas Field Project are: Orchard Petroleum Inc (62.5%); and Nuenco LLC (37.5%).
