Venus JV spuds Surat Basin well

Rougemont

Strata-X Energy and Real Energy have spudded the Venus-1 pilot well, their first coal seam gas (CSG) venture in the Surat Basin’s Walloon CSG fairway in Queensland.

Roma-based Silver City Drilling will drill the well to the top Walloon coals at about 400m, before casing it and then drilling out to a total depth of 680m.

Once it reaches total depth, a wellhead will be installed and the Silver City rig will be demobilised.

Real Energy advised that the current operations are being conducted in a pressure testing blow out preventer before drilling out after the 9-5/8-inch casing being run and cemented.

The JV reported at the end of last week that the project faced delays after wet weather caused the mobilisation of the rig to be halted for a few days.

The companies outlined that after the Silver City rig is demobilised, a Wellpro coil tubing unit will be mobilised and they will carry out a short-term initial water influx test.

Following this, 40 separate intervals of highly gas saturated Juandah coal seams will be abrasive jetted. Abrasive jetting is a non-frack coil tubing-deployed reservoir stimulation method, designed to improve water influx and gas flows from the targeted gassy coals.

Stara-X highlighted that the Venus-1 would be equipped with a downhole pump, surface facilities and water handling methods, as required, to carry out a controlled drawdown flow test over several months.

Following the commercial gas flow rates being achieved in the pilot program, the JV will begin progressively converting the 695 petajoules prospective gas resource to reserves, with the goal to fast track development of the project.

The Venus pilot drilling and setup is planned for this month, with the production test expected to continue into early 2021.

Strata-X reported that the proposed production test was designed to prove initial gas breakout and increasing gas flow rates over the controlled draw-down period.

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