Empire Energy has commenced the fracture stimulation, flowback and extended production testing at Carpentaria-1 in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin.
Four fracture stimulation stages will be undertaken from the vertical wellbore, targeting the A shale, Intra A/B shale, B shale and C shale of the Middle Velkerri Formation.
The fracture stimulation program will test each of the four thick and productive target zones across the stacked Velkerri shale formation units.
The company has advised that site preparation and civil works are complete, with equipment now onsite. These include: proppant, surface ponds for water storage, hydraulic stimulation pump trucks, mixing trucks, a coiled tubing unit and a cased hole wireline unit.
Hydraulic stimulation operations are expected to take one week, followed by one month of fluid flow back before hydrocarbon flows are expected to begin.
The Carpentaria-1 vertical well was drilled from September to October 2020 in EP187, followed by an extensive formation evaluation program, which the well was then cased and suspended in activation of the current hydraulic stimulation and extended production testing program.
Once the fracture stimulation operations are complete, the company will remove bridge plugs from the wellborn so that the well can be placed on flow-back status.
A rod pump and downhole tubing will be installed as part of flow-back activities.
Empire further outlined that during flow-back, fracture stimulation fluids will be removed from the wellbore, so that the target formations can start to produce hydrocarbons.
Flow-back return fluid will then be stored in over-capacity, double-lined and bonded tanks for volume reduction by evaporation and safe disposal of residual fluids.
The company stated that once flow-back is complete, an extended hydrocarbon production test will commence.