Touchstone Exploration Inc. said on Monday that it had found “non-commercial rates” of light oil in the less prospective part of the Royston-1X well in Trinidad and Tobago, which it said was an encouraging result.
The first of five planned production tests in the onshore Ortoire block secondary well involved depths of 11,102 to 11,168 feet in the subthrust sheet of the Herrera Formation, the Canadian company said in a press release. The oil did not come to the surface, Touchstone said.
“The dredged volumes were analyzed by a third party which confirmed 40 degrees API gravity formation crude oil, which represents the deepest oil found in the Ortoire block to date,” he added. “This section of the formation appears to be a low-permeability reservoir and no further testing will be conducted.”
However, Touchstone will potentially conduct four more tests with a collective target of 384 gross feet, the Toronto- and London-listed company said.
“We are encouraged that the initial test of the Royston-1X well successfully confirmed the presence of light oil in the subthrust sheet, validating our internal wireline log analysis,” said Touchstone President and CEO Paul Baay, in the announcement. “The results of testing and crude oil analysis have been crucial in establishing the extent of the hydrocarbon column penetrated by the well, providing valuable baseline information for evaluating log data and defining future test intervals” .
Touchstone announced on February 6 that it had begun drilling operations at the Royston-1X well, in which it has an 80 percent interest. State-owned Heritage Petroleum Co. Ltd. of the host country has the remaining 20 percent.
In its 2022 earnings report, released on March 24, Touchstone said: “We have safely reached the budgeted full depth of our Royston-1X diversion well in the Ortoire block on February 24, 2023. well has been cased and we expect to begin production testing on February 24, 2023. end of March 2023.”
Production tests are expected to last months, with the second expected to begin in late May, according to Monday’s update.
Royston-1X re-enters the Royston-1 exploration well, which had already encountered light and sweet crude oil in the overburden and intermediate layers since drilling began in 2021, Touchstone said in the release February 6
“The Royston-1 well drilled in 2021 showed enormous potential, flowing significant volumes of 33-grade API oil from both the overburden and intermediate layers; however, mechanical challenges prevented significant production from the well ” said the head of Touchstone in the February update. 6.
“The challenges encountered at Royston-1 and the lessons learned have helped us design a drilling plan to optimally evaluate the Herrera Formation.”
Touchstone already has operating businesses in Trinidad and Tobago. Last year it delivered “the first onshore natural gas field to come on stream in Trinidad in 20 years” from the Coho facility, it said in its March 24 performance report last year .
He also said on February 27 that he was on track to complete his Cascadura installation by the end of June. The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd. had told Touchstone that it expected the first gas delivery from the facility on June 30, Touchstone said in a statement.
In January, Touchstone said its local subsidiary Primera Oil and Gas Ltd. entered into an asset exchange agreement with Lease Operators Ltd. “Under the agreement, we have agreed to transfer our Fyzabad, San Francique and Barrackpore blocks, which currently produce aggregate crude oil volumes of approximately 130 barrels per day (‘bbls/d’), in exchange for the blocks Rio Claro, Balata East and Balata East Deep Horizons (‘Balata Deep’), which offset our Ortoire block and are currently producing aggregate crude volumes of approximately 35 bbl/d,” it announced on January 9.
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