"The recommendations of our independent export Troy Ikoda regarding aggressive waterflood should be implemented as soon as possible. Doing that would, I believe, satisfy previous Greymouth concerns and help us recover an extra two million barrels or more through water injection," Matthews told EnergyReview.Net from Sydney.
NZOG last month received the report from British company Troy Ikoda Ltd, which had been commissioned after the Ngatoro partners were unable to agree on the most effective means of increasing production from the field.
Matthews said Greymouth had stated a figure of about 2500 barrels of water day for any waterflood program, while Indo-Pacific preferred up to 5000 bpd.
Troy Ikoda had recommended an initial re-injection of water at the rate of 4000-6000 barrels per day via an existing well and then drilling a special purpose water well to increase total water injection to 10, 000 barrels per day to sweep an extra 2.4 million barrels of oil from the field.
Matthews essentially declined to comment on Greymouth's announcement earlier this week that it planned to drill a Ngatoro development well and a sidetrack of the Tabla-1 well, as well as linking the controversial Goldie-1 well into its nearby Kaimiro production station.
However, Matthews did say he believed an additional Ngatoro development well would not be necessary if the Troy Ikoda recommendations were implemented swiftly.
However, Indo-Pacific boss Dave Bennett was more outspoken about the Greymouth proposals, saying no element of the so-called development program had been approved by the Ngatoro joint venture and that it was "loony" to sidetrack Tabla-1 when it had not even been tested.
He also said Greymouth's proposed Ngatoro development well was based on a misconceived concept and its proposed service lines in and between the Kaimiro and Ngatoro mining licences were questionable.
Greymouth and Indo-Pacific had been embroiled in a protracted battle for effective control of the controversial Goldie-1 well, which Indo-Pacific drilled on a sole risk basis in early 2001 but which Greymouth had shut down last September, since mid-2002. The battle culminated in a 2½ week High Court trial that ended in Wellington earlier this month. The decision has been reserved.
