Morumbi Oil & Gas (Morumbi) has drilled and cased its recent 102-12-33-65-22W5M well to a total depth of 1460mt, which is its first well on the McKinley prospect in northwestern Alberta.
The well encountered the targeted Cadotte reservoir approximately 2mt structurally higher than the highest offset wells drilled to date in the McKinley Cadotte light oil pool. Based on logs, the well encountered a little over 9mt (30ft) of Cadotte sand with porosity in the range of 13% to 23% with the best porosity (average of about 20%) present in the top 3.5mt of the Cadotte sands penetrated by the well.
The oil and gas shows were experienced in the drilling but full completion and testing of the well has been delayed as a result of the early break-up that closed the Suncor operated Simonette service road used to access the Mckinley property.
The 12-33 vertical well was drilled approximately 8mt east of the original 12-33 horizontal well bore, which encountered generally porosity in excess of 20% and good oil staining. Morumbi had planned to drill the new 12-33 well approximately 10mt to the west of the original horizontal well bore but surface conditions including a river embankment resulted in the well being placed 17mt east of this original location.
The original horizontal directional surveys suggest the well is positioned in the lower sand penetrated in the new 12-33 vertical well, approximately 7mt lower than the top of the Cadotte formation penetrated.
Morumbi plans to complete the well as soon as surface conditions permit after spring break-up. The company is in the process of designing the completion program including a fracture stimulation of the well bore with the view to fracing into more of the main reservoir sands encountered in the original horizontal well bore.
Morumbi’s assessment is that the vertical well is on the eastern edge of the McKinley Cadotte oil pool. The company believes that it encountered tighter Cadotte sands in the lower portion of the zone (reservoir quality sand would be in the 18% porosity range) despite the fact that these same sands situated 8mt to the west have better indicated porosity on geological sample logs in the plus 20% range.
Morumbi anticipates that it will be able to maximize productivity of the well by fracing the well with the view to improving the permeability of the Cadotte sand encountered in the lower portion of new 12-33 well and with the view to accessing the higher porosity encountered in the nearby horizontal well bore which is situated only 8mt to the west.
Further work is also being undertaken to determine if the upper 3.5mt of the well represents the Cadotte gas cap or if the gas cap has been depleted sufficiently to perf and produce oil from the 20% porosity reservoir quality sands encountered at the top of the Cadotte reservoir in the 12-33 well. The 12-33 well is structurally higher than offset wells including the closest well, which is located approximately 500mt west of the recently drilled 12-33 well (7-32 well has produced close to 500,000 barrels of light oil).
Morumbi has already received government surface lease approvals for the approximately 700mt pipeline required to tie-in the new 12-33 well, upon successful completion operations, to the existing 4-33 well site that will enable the Morumbi to utilize an existing pipeline connection to a nearby Canadian Natural Resources operated oil processing facility.
Morumbi may also opt to install its own processing facility at its 4-33 well site should the productivity of the 12-33 well warrant this additional expenditure. These plans would include converting the vertical portion of the original horizontal well (surface location at 4-33) into a water disposal well and for pressure maintenance purposes.