Apache Corporation (Apache) has informed that the Phiops-5 appraisal well in Egypt's Western Desert has tested 8,279 barrels of oil and 0.4 million cubic feet (MMcf) of natural gas per day from the Cretaceous Alam El Buieb (AEB) formation. Phiops field is situated in the south Umbarka concession about 2.5 miles (four kilometers) northwest of Apache's Kalabsha field. The well was tested via perforated intervals of 72 feet within a 374-foot hydrocarbon column.
The hydrocarbon column comprises of 242 feet of net pay across the AEB 3E and 3G units. Phiops is the one of the five fields discovered by Apache and its joint venture partner, Khalda Petroleum Company, in the Faghur basin of the Western Desert from 2006.
This Jurassic and lower Cretaceous oil play in the extreme southwest part of the Western Desert will be additionally explored by further wildcat drilling and acquisition of 180,000 acres (740 square kilometers) of new three-dimensional seismic data.
A new pipeline from Phiops to the Khepri-Sethos facilities is projected to be concluded in July 2009. New high-pressure pumps and additional storage at Kalabsha and Khepri-Sethos are projected to raise production capacity in the Kalabsha region from around 4,000 barrels per day to about 20,000 barrels per day in early 2010.
The Phiops-1X discovery, drilled in late 2008, discovered 173 feet of oil pay in the AEB formation. It was concluded previously in 2009 as an oil producer in the Jurassic Safa formation after testing 2,278 barrels of oil and 5.16 MMcf of gas per day. Apache presently is drilling two additional wells at Phiops with three more intended for 2009.