Australia's Buru Energy Updates on Laurel Formation Tight Gas Pilot Exploration Program

Buru Energy on Monday said the evaluation of the data obtained from the Laurel Formation tight gas stimulation program in Western Australia’s Canning Basin has confirmed the prospectivity and commercial potential of the resource.

“Although still cleaning up, the wells have performed very strongly, with gas flows from all stimulated zones, and initial gas peak rates on blowdown of up to 44 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfgpd), and average blowdown gas rates of up to 13.5 mmcfgpd. Although not direct indicators of long term productivity, these rates are very positive indicators of stimulated reservoir volumes and formation pressures,” the company said.

Other positive results include the very good gas quality, with analysis of the commingled gas streams from the stimulated zones showing high liquids content (25 to 38 bbls per million cubic feet), and low inerts (2% to 5% CO2).

Building on these results, an independent resource estimate by DeGolyer and MacNaughton confirmed the company’s view of the potential of the resource with a contingent resource estimate of a gross 1.5 Tcf of recoverable gas. In addition, it also confirmed gross prospective resources of some 13 Tcf of gas in the immediate area of the evaluation. On the basis of these results, Buru has also defined a work program that could potentially lead to another 3 Tcf of contingent resources in the evaluation area.

These estimates on the basis of the two stimulated wells and the previously drilled Valhalla 2 well are a very positive result for such a relatively small program, Buru stated.

Buru is partnering Mitsubishi for this project.