Oz Empire Starts Drilling in Northern Territory
Sydney-listed Empire Energy will start drilling the Carpentaria-1 well in its 100% owned Northern Territory permit EP187 on September 23, it said on the same day in a statement.
The well will be drilled to a depth of about 2,900 m to fully evaluate the two unconventional shale targets, the Velkerri and Kyalla Shales. The company previously said Netherland, Sewell and Associates has independently assessed these targets to have a best estimate prospective resource of 2.4 trillion ft3 of gas equivalent.
Drilling and evaluation is expected to take approximately 40 days. “The well design allows for suspension and future re-entry, fracture stimulation and flow testing, which Empire presently expects to commence in Q2 2021,” Empire said.
After the work, the well will be cased and suspended while the company plans the fracture stimulation and flow testing programme.