3Legs Announces Update of Baltic Basin Well
3Legs Resources has today announced an update on its Warblino LE-1H2 well, located on the onshore Baltic Basin in Poland.
The company says the well has been shut in following an initial successful flow rate of 60 to 90 thousand standard cubic feet per day (mscfd) of natural gas and over 1,000 barrels per day (bpd) of fracture fluid. The figures dropped to 18 mscfd of natural gas and 300 bpd of fracture fluid after the shut in.
A seven stage hydraulic fracture stimulation (frack) was performed on the well before the shut in, using a gelled fluid, across a 500 metre horizontal section in the deeper lower Palaeozoic shales. The well is the second of two in the region to be fracked.
The company says the suspension of activity on the well will have a twofold benefit: better weather conditions and fracture stimulation recovery at the well.
The company will perform further production testing in the spring of 2012, when it says weather conditions will be more favourable.
A statement from the company also says "that the well could benefit from being shut in for an extended period of several months to recover from the fracture stimulation and to enable the fracture treatment fluid, potentially obstructing the flow of natural gas, to dissipate."
An analysis of the results of coring, wireline logging, production and other data is currently underway, with results expected in the first quarter of 2012.
"We have now concluded our 2011 drilling and testing programme for the Baltic Basin, which has achieved its objectives of completing two wells with horizontal sections and multistage fracks," Chief Executive of 3Legs Peter Clutterbuck said.
"We have demonstrated that shale gas can be flowed in both wells and in different horizons, and we have gathered extensive amounts of new data with which to advance further our understanding of the production potential of the reservoir."
Mr. Clutterbuck also said that the company expected an improvement in the levels of gas as operations continue.
"Although flow rates have been low, we expect to be able to further improve well productivity, as is often the case in other shale plays in the US at this stage of appraisal.
"Our primary focus now is on developing improvements in hydraulic fracture and completion design which will further enhance well production rates, in addition to considering the acquisition of new 2D and 3D seismic and the drilling of a number of new wells in the near term. This is critical in order to convert this very large gas in place volume into commercial reserves.
"The benefits of developing a domestic energy supply from a clean fuel such as natural gas are potentially very significant, particularly in the prevailing economic climate."