San Leon: Progressing (Albeit Slowly) in Poland
San Leon says where it’s at, sort of
While many in Poland’s burgeoning shale business speak of the need for the various explorers to share data, it looks like it’s just too early in the game for that to happen now.
In his speech to delegates at Shale Gas Results in Europe 2011 in Warsaw, Poland, Lars Hubert, Exploration Manager for San Leon Energy in Poland admitted: “We’re not at the stage where we can show examples from our work.”
He explained that San Leon’s core areas were Poland, offshore Albania, and that it had assets in Netherlands, among others. Hubert said the company had large holding in Poland in the Baltic and Permian basins.
“Regarding the status of our shale plays, in the Baltic we have three licenses in Poland, with one pending, and have teamed up with Talisman. Some 25 wells were drilled there in the 1970s in the Paleozoic, in the northern part – only one economic discovery was made, but they did lot of sampling of the source rocks.”
Hubert added San Leon had completed three seismic surveys, and had not had any accidents at its exploration operations in Poland. “We’ve permitted one well in the Gdansk West Concession,” he added. “Two more are pending permission and will be drilled this year.”
He said the objective was to assess the source rock potential of the carboniferous shale, noting that one conventional reservoir had been discovered (at Paproc).
“We believe that the conditions are favorable for the carboniferous to be a successful shale gas play,” explained Hubert. “We’re planning data acquisition including seismic and the drilling of wells.”
He continued: “The Permian basin has salt and fast carbonates obscuring the seismic data, it’s structurally complex and there are volcanics in the area, which can affect things like seismic data.’
According to Hubert, the Baltic basin was structurally simple, but salt and carbonates there could obscure data. He said among the key learnings from the basin was to use traditional best practices for seismic data acquisition: imaging, amplitude preservation and testing, testing, testing.
He spoke of shale gas economics.
“Less than 30% of wells profitable at Barnett,” he said. “Fifty percent of perforations don’t flow, and 70% flow from 30% of perforations.”
He said the challenge was identifying sweetspots and optimizing the drilling and emphasized the importance of the use of seismic data in shale gas exploration and production, listing identifying porosity, assessing fracture patterns and assessing organic content.
In terms of variables that affect elastic properties, his slide noted that there was no silver bullet, listing fractures, TOC, etc.
Regarding TOC modeling, Hubert showed a carbonate rich shale, explaining there were two different zones, two different facies, and that it was possible to break out where there was higher organic carbon and use the seismic data to find where it was possible to find these parameters.
“We’re still in the early stage in Polish shale gas exploration, and don’t have much data in terms of seismic or wells. San Leon is in the process of processing the seismic data that we will have,” he stated, adding: “There’s lots of great seismic technology being developed.”
Hubert concluded by saying that San Leon was looking forward to developing its assets in Poland.
Related Reading:
Talisman, San Leon to Drill Gdańsk West Concession in September