The new leases – Wheeler Road, Tejon Ranch, Lamont and Button Willow – are near producing oil and gas fields and have targets in Miocene to Eocene aged sandstones, consistent with the company’s exploration strategy for the area.
Salinas said the acquisitions completed its first phase of asset building in California, which began late last year.
The Wheeler Road and Tejon Ranch leases are both located on the Tejon platform on the southern margin of the San Joaquin Basin, southeast of the South Buena Vista lease area.
At Tejon, a 3D seismic survey is currently being run over several prospective structures, previously mapped from well control and 2D seismic data. Target prospect sizes are expected to be between 10 million and 20 million barrels (MMbbl) of recoverable oil.
The most advanced play is the North Salt Creek Prospect, a footwall structure with numerous, stacked sandstone targets. The prospect’s primary reservoir is the Vedder Formation, up-dip from a 1962 well that tested oil (40 degree API) and gas from that zone but was not brought into long-term production.
The Wheeler Road acreage is prospective for both oil and gas but Salinas says it does not expect a prospect will be matured for drilling until late this year or in 2007.
Meanwhile, the Lamont lease, which is located on the southeastern flank of the basin, is surrounded by producing fields with the 90MMbbl Mountain View oil field immediately to the east.
It contains a series of mapped fault bound structures with stacked reservoir targets, which are estimated to contain 10-20MMbbl of recoverable oil reserves.
The reservoirs are expected to be capable of moderate to strong flow rates, according to Salinas.
At least two of the leads mapped from well control and vintage 2D seismic data are located up-dip from wells with possible unexploited oil pay, the company said.
Salinas is acquiring all the well data and available seismic data, including 3D, to re-evaluate the block and select a target for drilling this year.
Meanwhile, the company is also acquiring all the available seismic data to better define targets in the Buttonwillow lease.
Salinas says its initial evaluation indicates a shallow gas trend is present on the boundary of the 36 billion cubic feet Bowerbank gas field, which produces from relatively shallow reservoirs.
