Ophir finds some oil offshore Thailand

Ophir Energy has wrapped up drilling operations at the G4/50-11 wildcat exploration in the South Western Graben of the Gulf of Thailand. While encountering oil, Ophir said the quantity was not enough to be commercial.

The well was the second in Ophir’s 2015 exploration drilling program in the G4/50 licence and targeted the Parichat Southwest prospect. The G4/50-11 well reached a total depth of 2,830 metres (True Vertical Depth Sub-Sea) and encountered oil in both the primary Oligocene and secondary Miocene reservoir targets.

Overall the well encountered an aggregate 5.5 metres of net oil pay, but the discovery is considered to be below the economic threshold for a commercial discovery, the company said.

“Importantly this discovery has confirmed for the first time the existence of an active hydrocarbon system in this previously undrilled South Western Graben. The well also encountered a greater thickness of reservoir sands than expected pre-drilling, which is an encouraging result for the future exploration of this basin,” Ophir Energy said in a statement on Thursday.

Ophir said that wireline logging process was completed, including the recovery of oil samples from both reservoir intervals.

The G4/50-11 well will now be plugged and abandoned and a detailed analysis of the well data will be conducted. This analysis will determine whether the multiple analogous prospects nearby have been sufficiently de-risked to warrant exploration drilling in 2016.

The drilling rig will now move to the Bualuang Alpha platform to drill a water disposal well. This is part of the project to increase the water handling capacity at Bualuang, thus a potential production bottleneck.