Jack-up rig moves to second well in Black Sea drilling campaign

Canada’s oil and gas producer Trillion Energy has started the work planned for the second well in its 2022 – 2023 drilling campaign on a natural gas field in the Black Sea off Türkiye.

After delays due to maintenance and weather conditions in the Black Sea, the Canadian player started drilling its first well in this drilling campaign on the SASB natural gas field in September 2022, following the arrival of the Uranus rig – hired in May 2022 – to the Akçakoca platform. As explained by the company, three directional wells are expected to be drilled from this platform, along with a recompletion of an existing well.

Come October 2022, Trillion announced the preliminary gas indications from the first well, South Akçakoca-2, in its multi-well programme, explaining that the well reached 2,826 metres total depth (TD) on 15 October and identified numerous potential gas zones on logging.

After disclosing the flow test results at the start of November for the first well in its 17-well development programme on this shallow-water conventional gas field, Trillion has now moved to the second well in this drilling campaign by starting the recompletion work at the Akçakoca-3 natural gas well. 

In an update on Thursday, the Canadian firm explained that the Uranus rig was repositioned 3 meters while at the Akçakoca platform to the Akçakoca-3 well slot on 31 October 2022. The recompletion started on 1 November 2022 and is expected to take 12 days.

The company outlines that this recompletion work will replace the bent 2 ½” tubing with 4 ½” tubing, and perforate the remaining gas zones. Afterwards, the well will be put back onto production.  

Originally, the Akcakoca-3 well started production in March 2011 and has produced 9.78 Bcf of natural gas to date. However, the well has only intermittently produced gas since November 2019, as it encountered mechanical issues with the production tubing and water build-up. Trillion highlights that this well is “expected to start producing natural gas again immediately upon recompletion.”

The Uranus rig will continue the work programme after the activities at the Akçakoca platform are completed by moving to the next of the three platforms at the SASB field.