LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Morocco-focussed upstream gas company Sound Energy updated the market on its operations in Eastern Morocco on Monday, having previously announced a discovery and the initiation of planning for testing including possible stimulation at TE-10 - the second well in its current three-well exploration programme in the Tendrara area, onshore Morocco.
The AIM-traded firm had previously reported that preliminary TE-10 wireline logging results identified a potential TAGI gross reservoir sequence from 1,899m measured depth (MD) to 2,009m MD, an initial net pay estimate of up to 10.5m, and gas bearing sands beneath the mapped TAGI structural closure.

Gas was also successfully recovered to surface with a modular formation dynamics tester system, confirming the presence of moveable hydrocarbons in the reservoir.

The board said the rig at TE-10 had now been demobilised, and was stacked at the TE-10 rig site on a reduced standby rate, awaiting drilling of the next - and final - well in the company's current exploration programme, TE-11.

The company announced on 7 January that the high definition formation micro-imager log (FMI), which provided a microresistivity image of the wellbore at a much finer resolution than the initial logging suite, had potentially identified the presence of additional thin bedded net pay within the previously-identified potential gross reservoir interval between 1,899m MD to 2,009m MD.

Sound Energy confirmed on Monday that the FMI identified both the presence of fractures, and the previously-announced potential additional thin bedded net pay.

"A total of 57 sidewall core samples have been successfully cut and shipped out of Morocco and are now being analysed by ALS in the UK," the board reported.

"Preliminary analyses of a sample subset show permeabilities within the range observed in the TE-5 Horst area."

Sound Energy said its initial, and previously announced, net pay estimates of up to 10.5m were now being revised "likely upwards", integrating the wireline data with the ongoing analyses of the sidewall core.

The company said it expected to be able to confirm a revised net pay estimate in mid-February.

Sound Energy said the North East Lakbir stratigraphic trap, the most material of TE-10's two targets, had pre-drill mid case potential on a gross - 100% - basis of 2.7 Tcf gas originally in place (GOIP).

Following the acquisition of the vertical seismic profile (VSP) at TE-10, the firm previously confirmed that the gas shows observed during drilling extended below the currently-mapped structural closure at approximately 1,958m MD, suggesting that the gas accumulation could extend updip into the stratigraphic trap

"Seismic interpretation and modelling to provide an estimate of the gas resources within the discovery at this specific well and to de-risk the stratigraphic upside continue and are expected to be completed also by mid-February," the board said.

Design, planning and procurement for the TE-10 testing programme was nearing completion, the company added.

It confirmed that the testing programme would include stimulation of the well, and that the testing and stimulation equipment was already being mobilised to site by Schlumberger from Libya and Tunisia.

"The first stage of the TE-10 testing programme, which will commence early February, will conduct a series of flow tests on multiple intervals between 1,899m MD and 2,070m MD to establish the presence of deepest moveable gas, and reduce the range of uncertainty on gas resource volumes.

"The company then intends, once the stimulation equipment has arrived, to mechanically stimulate the most prospective reservoir zones in a series of production flow tests."

Sound Energy said the stimulated test was expected to take at least 30 days from commencement.

Based on its current assessment of the reservoir section, a stimulated flow rate of approximately 1.5 mmscf/d to 2mmscf/d, was likely to be commercial - as a tie-back development to the TE-5 Horst existing discovery.

"This commerciality threshold would be materially lower if the stratigraphic upside materialises as the TE-10 development would, in that case, be a standalone development."

At TE-11, the board said it was "delighted" to confirm that it had now selected the location for TE-11, subject to partner approvals.

The firm said it was targeting a Palaeozoic high in the northern area of the Greater Tendrara licence.

Ground works for the drilling of TE-11 - the third well in the exploration programme - were expected to commence after the TE-10 well test.

"The company also continues to make good progress with the development of the existing discovery - TE-5 Horst - which is being prepared for a 66 mmscf/d development project requiring production wells, a central processing facility (CPF), and a 120km gas export pipeline (TGEP)."

Sound Energy said the consortium comprising Enagas, Elecnor and Fomento continued to make "good progress" in preparing for the build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) contract for TE-5, which would see the consortium executing front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the TGEP and CPF at their cost, securing the required $186m capital investment and executing the project, in exchange for an annual tariff payable calculated by reference to a target internal rate of return for the consortium, and to a 'not-to-exceed' fee of $45m per annum.

Sound noted that the FEED for the TGEP had now been completed by the consortium, and that FEED for the CPF was expected to be completed by the end of April.

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