Huinga partner Indo-Pacific Energy reports that all test equipment is now installed on the well site east of Stratford, and production testing is about to commence. Testing is scheduled to take at least fifteen days as the well is first cleaned up and two zones are then tested.
Hopes are high in the Taranaki exploration industry that Huinga will prove to be a significant discovery. Estimates of the size of find vary between a smallish, Ngatoro-sized field containing two million barrels or so of oil, up to something similar to the more northerly McKee field, containing 70 million barrels plus.
Indo-Pacific said the initial testing program was designed to provide information on formation pressures, well productivity and minimum reserve estimates.
After the initial five-day 'clean-up' flow of both test zones, there would be a five-day day flow of the upper zone intersected, 13,980-14,058 feet, followed by a five-day day flow of the lower zone, between 14,393-14,465 feet.
It was expected the initial flows would include considerable amounts of drilling fluids and lost circulation material lost into the formation during drilling. Over 280,000 barrels of drilling fluids were lost, much of that into the Murihiku Supergroup basement thrust which was prognosed to overlay the prospective Tertiary Kapuni section.
Therefore, said Indo-Pacific, it would take some time to achieve clean, stabilised oil and gas flow rates.
Indo-Pacific said it was possible that the two test zones intersected the same oil pool and that this might be a single oil column over a depth of 750 feet or more.
The Huinga structure is mapped on seismic as covering an area of up to 2,500 acres within PEP 38716. Similar structures have been identified to the south, also in PEP 38716, and in the acreage immediately to the north. Earlier this month Crown Minerals awarded a consortium led by Indo-Pacific exploration rights over this acreage.
All oil produced during testing at Huinga would be on-sold, initially under a common marketing arrangement of the PEP 38716 joint venture. It was planned to continue oil production from one or both zones, depending on the initial test results.
Indo-Pacific also said it expected the Kahili-1A appraisal well, in PEP 38736, to start in September. Kahili-1A would be deviated out of the Kahili-1 well-bore to intersect a more crestal position on the Kahili structure. Oil was recovered during a short open-hole test of the Tariki sandstones in Kahili-1 earlier this year.
