Rialto Energy: Drill-Pipe Stuck at Gazelle. Drilling Faces 2-Week Delay (Ivory Coast)

Rialto Energy Limited , provides the following weekly update on drilling operations at the Gazelle-P3 Well as at 06:00hrs, 1 April 2012 (GMT). The Gazelle-P3 well was spudded on 12 March 2012 using the Transocean GSF Monitor jack-up drilling rig.

The well is the first of an overall three well drilling programme on CI-202 that is anticipated to take six months to complete, together with testing. The well has been drilled to a depth of 1070m, at which point the drill-pipe became stuck. During the process of trying to free the drill-pipe, mechanical problems with the rig equipment occurred and are currently being rectified by the drilling contractor, Transocean. It is estimated that the repairs to the rig  and the subsequent operations to remedy the stuck-pipe situation will take 2 weeks after which normal drilling operations will resume.

Commenting on the drilling progress, Charlie Nieto, Chief Operating Officer, said:

“We have experienced some delays during the beginning of our drilling programme but are working very closely with our drilling contractor, Transocean, to implement repairs and recommence drilling as soon as possible. We are very confident in our drilling team and once the rig equipment is repaired all efforts will be made to avoid further disruptions, and to ensure that the drilling is completed as efficiently and expediently as possible as we continue with our 3 well programme.”

[mappress]
Source: Rialto Energy, April 2, 2012