The lease holder and operator of the project is private United States company, Texas Standard Oil Operating Company.
The lease area is directly south of the Phase Four, Shanghai and El Campo gas fields. These fields have produced more than 120 billion cubic feet of gas and 9 million barrels of condensate from Eocene-aged Yegua sands located in a fault block up-dip and 2km north of El Fatso, according to VicPet.
The El Fatso Prospect was defined from good-to-excellent quality 3D seismic shot in 1995, which has recently been reprocessed and re-mapped, the company said.
“The exploration targets in the El Fatso Prospect display excellent seismic amplitude and amplitude variation with offset responses,” managing director John Kopcheff said.
“The use of 3D seismic has improved significantly the rate of drilling success to approximately 70 percent for Yegua fairway targets which in the past have been discovered and developed using 2D seismic only.
“The presence of seismic attributes that are positive indicators for the presence of gas in the target horizons is particularly encouraging given the close proximity of the producing El Campo gas field, although the target horizons are yet to be proved by the drill.”
The first well on the prospect, Schoenfield-1, will target three stacked seismic amplitude and AVO defined prospects in a lower Yegua sand fairway between 11,000 feet and 13,000 feet measured depth, according to Kopcheff.
“The targets, if hydrocarbon bearing, are expected to contain gas and condensate in encased sand bodies laid down as deltaic fans or turbiditic channels,” he said.
The operator has estimated unrisked potential recoverable resource across the three sands of up to 72Bcf and 6.5 million barrels of condensate at a P10 level of confidence.
The unrisked P90 potential resource estimate is 19.7Bcf and the P50 potential resource is 30Bcf.
“The drilling of the well is expected to commence in late December and it is anticipated to take 30 days to reach the proposed total depth of 13,700 feet,” Kopcheff said.
Under the participation agreement with Texas Standard Oil & Gas, VicPet is to pay its proportionate share of leasing and other back costs to earn its initial working interest of 20%.
In the event of a discovery, the net revenue interest would be 14.6% and is committed to the drilling of the first well.
