Now confirmed January drilling.
Northern Petroleum Plc
('Northern' or the 'Company')
Aggressive two well drilling programme on the Isle of Wight: timetable
The Bouldnor Copse-1 planning application allows Northern Petroleum to confirm
the timetable for two wells on the Isle of Wight.
Northern believe that the structures contain a potential 135 million barrels of
recoverable oil net to the company.
The Sandhills-2 well will be drilled as the first well in the programme and has
a primary target of the Great Oolite limestone which has been proven to be oil
bearing in the Sandhills-1 well drilled by British Gas in 1982, but untested at
the time of drilling.
The Great Oolite reservoir will be cored, logged and tested to establish oil
content and the productivity of the reservoir. Following initial testing a
decision will be made to either continue with a longer term testing programme
of the Great Oolite or continue to the deeper Sherwood sandstone target or
release the rig to drill Bouldnor Copse-1 and bring it back afterwards to
deepen the well to the Sherwood sandstone.
The Bouldnor Copse-1 well will be drilled following completion of operations at
Sandhills-2 and will be targeted at both the Great Oolite as a further
appraisal of this reservoir and deepened to the Sherwood sandstone to evaluate
this reservoir target. Testing operations will commence with an evaluation of
the Sherwood sandstone given encouragement from core and log analysis followed
by testing of the Great Oolite, if analysis indicates hydrocarbon saturation,
to enable a comparison to the results obtained at Sandhills-2.
Northern has issued tenders for site construction at the Sandhills-2 site and
has issued tenders for a rig for the two well drilling programme. Long lead
time items for both wells have already been ordered to meet the earliest spud
date. Site construction is expected to commence at the Sandhills site within 3
weeks and the earliest anticipated spud date for the first well is December
2004 or January 2005, thus avoiding operations through the festive season.
For further information please contact,
Derek Musgrove, Managing Director
Northern Petroleum Plc
Tel. 020 7743 6080
Ben Simons
Hansard Communications
Tel. 020 7245 1100
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