Cooper Energy: Production Test Begins at Bargou Permit Well (Tunisia)

Cooper Energy Limited as Operator and 30% joint venture interest-holder of the Bargou Permit, offshore Tunisia advises that production testing of Hammamet West-3 commenced at 19:30 hours on Monday 5 August in Tunisia.

The well is currently shut-in, with the next planned operation being opening up of the production test string for a clean-up flow. The “GSP Jupiter” jack-up drilling rig is being used for drilling operations at the well.
It is expected that the production test period will be 4 to 8 days. The first phase of the test will attempt to flow the well naturally and is expected to take 1 to 2 days. If the well fails to flow significant fluid rates to surface in the first test phase, it is planned to introduce acid into the well bore to stimulate fluid flow by breaking down any plugged formation caused by the drilling
operations. This is a common practice in production testing fractured carbonate reservoirs. After flowing, the well is “shut-in” and the reservoir pressure response determined. The ‘post-acidisation’ phase of the production test is anticipated to take between 3 to 6 days.

As first phase flow-rates may not be indicative of ‘post-acidisation’ flows, the Joint Venture does not anticipate announcing well results until either the production test is concluded or as required by the ASX Continuous Disclosure obligations.

Well background
Hammamet West-3 is located 15 km offshore and 1.6 km east of Hammamet West-2 in 54 metres water depth (see map following). The nearest producing field is Maamoura, 12 km SW. The well objective is to drill and test a highly deviated wellbore through the naturally fractured Abiod Formation reservoir to confirm oil productivity. This is illustrated in the schematic diagram following. The test is being conducted over the entire 432 metre of Abiod Formation that has been accessed by a near horizontal wellbore. According to Cooper, this section is believed to contain a number of porous open fractures. While drilling the wellbore, numerous oil  and gas shows and significant drilling mud losses were recorded.