Sunbird's Second South Africa CBM Corehole Shows Good Results

Southern Africa gas explorer and developer Sunbird Energy has announced that the second corehole, MOP001A, at its Mopane project has shown gas content of up to 9.6 m3/t.

These results are consistent with the previously released MOP002A corehole results of up to 7.45m3/t, and provide encouraging data for strong gas content results across the project area, the company said.

This second set of results confirm the coal package at Mopane provides an attractive development opportunity with two main production intervals of between 14 and 15metres thickness containing gas contents ranging from 3.08 to 7.99m3/t and 3.17 to 9.63m3/t.

Sunbird Energy Managing Director Will Barker said: “These initial gas desorption results across the first 2 wells of our 8 well program provide significant encouragement for the prospectivity of the Mopane Project, and we look forward to receiving results for the remaining 6 wells.”

The company said that these initial results for both wells do not yet include the additional gas volumes that are still to be measured as residual gas contained in the samples. “These residual gas volumes are expected in the coming weeks as the remaining samples complete desorption analysis, further enhancing the total gas content results,” the company statement said.

Sunbird’s original independent expert report determined Mopane could contain a best estimate Gas-in-Place (GIP) of 1.9 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), based on net coal thickness of 15m and a gas content of 2.83m3/t. MOP001A, the second corehole completed at Mopane, reached total depth in December 2012 and resulted in a net coal thickness of 38.1m.

The Mopane project is located in the Limpopo Province of South Africa about 420km northeast of Johannesburg.