Mubadala wraps up Thai drilling campaign with another duster

UAE-based Mubadala Petroleum has completed its exploration drilling campaign at the G1/48 Manora oil field located in the Northern Gulf of Thailand with disappointing results. 

Mubadala is the operator of the G1/48 license and Tap Oil is its partner with a 30% working interest.

Manora JV partners approved a three-well exploration drilling program, plus a contingent appraisal sidetrack well, at the G1/48 at the end of October 2019.

The first well, the Inthanin-1, spudded on November 20, 2019, and reached a total depth of 2528m on November 24, 2019. No significant hydrocarbon shows were encountered at the first well.

Following the Inthanin-1 well, the Valaris JU-115 jack-up drilling rig moved to drill the second well in the campaign. The Yothaka East-1 well spudded on November 28 and reached a total measured depth of 3,367m on December 3.

Due to mixed results from the second well, Mubadala decided not to drill the third exploration well in the campaign, but instead to drill an appraisal well via a side track from Yothaka East.

Weak shows at Yothaka East appraisal

In an update on Friday, Tap Oil said that operations on the sidetrack of the Yothaka East-2 appraisal well from the Yothaka East -1 well bore started on December 5 and the well reached a total measured depth of 3881m on December 11, 2019.

The primary objective 600 series sands, that were interpreted to be oil bearing in Yothaka East -1 well located 1 km to the south, were intersected within 4m of pre-drill prognosed depths and approximately 60 m down dip of the discovery well, Yothaka-East-1.

According to Tap, weak shows were encountered while drilling and logs indicated the sands while better developed, as prognosed, are water bearing in the Yothaka-East-2 location. Logs indicated approximately 4m of net (water bearing) sand in the 600 series and, pending further petrophysical data analysis, a possible oil-water contact is present in the equivalent sand to the main pay sand in Yothaka East-1.

The well is currently being plugged and abandoned. Integrated analysis of the results of the two wells and the 3D seismic data tied into Manora is ongoing to determine the volumetric and economic significance of the 600 series reservoirs in the Yothaka East structure.