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- Oil explorer 88 Energy (88E) says good progress is being made at its Charlie-1 appraisal well at the Icewine project in northern Alaska
- Drilling has now achieved several milestones
- A total vertical depth of almost 3400 metres has been reached in the Kuparuk Formation
- Charlie-1 has intersected seven stacked prospects, four of which are interpreted as oil-bearing
- Further wireline logging will refine the results, and should be completed within a week
- 88 Energy will operate Charlie-1 via its 100% owned subsidiary, Accumulate Energy Alaska, with farm-out partner Premier Oil to fund the well
- The gross mean prospective resource across the seven stacked targets to be intersected by Charlie-1 is estimated at 1.6 billion barrels of oil
- 88 Energy is up 11.1 per cent on the market today, with shares priced at 2 cents apiece
Oil explorer 88 Energy (88E) says good progress is being made at its Charlie-1 appraisal well at the Icewine project on the Central North Slope, Alaska.
The Charlie-1 well has been designed as a step-out appraisal of a well drilled in 1991 by BP Exploration (Alaska) called Malguk-1. This original drill program ran into difficulties, however, and was using now-outmoded technology.
88 Energy subsequently undertook revised petrophysical analysis, and identified some targets which may have been misinterpreted in the original program. The acquisition of modern 3D seismic data technology in 2018 has allowed 88E to further determine the extent of the discovered oil accumulations.
Drilling has now achieved several milestones. A total vertical depth of almost 3400 metres has been reached in the Kuparuk Formation. Charlie-1 has intersected seven stacked prospects, four of which are interpreted as oil-bearing in Malguk-1 and are therefore considered appraisal targets. The preliminary results have confirmed those appraised by Malguk-1, and further wireline logging will refine the results. This should be completed within a week, including initial analysis.
88 Energy will operate Charlie-1 via its 100% owned subsidiary, Accumulate Energy Alaska, while Premier Oil will provide $23 million in funding under a recent farm-out agreement.
The company reported a gross mean prospective resource across the seven stacked targets to be intersected by Charlie-1 at 1.6 billion barrels of oil. Those estimates from August 2019 are set to be further defined by the current drilling program, commenced on 2 March, with flow testing to be completed in April. As per the current estimates, 88E’s share stands at 480 million barrels.
Given that the resource estimates relate to “undiscovered accumulations”, these figures are still just best-guesses at this point. Once drilling and assessment at Charlie-1 are complete, 88E will be able to provide a much firmer appraisal of the actual quantity of moveable hydrocarbons at the targets.
88E also says it can confirm that COVID-19 continues to have no impact on the program to date and appropriate measures have been put in place to ensure that any potential impacts are being proactively addressed.
88 Energy is up 11.1 per cent on the market today, with shares priced at 2 cents apiece as at 12 pm AEDT.
