Technical Update on Atlantic Margin Prospects

RNS Number : 8346Q

Petrel Resources PLC

12 November 2012

 



12 November 2012

Petrel Resources plc

("Petrel" or the "Company")

Technical Update on Irish Atlantic Margin Prospects

& Participation in the Atlantic Ireland 2012 Conference, Dublin

Highlights:

·    Detailed modeling has outlined a one billion barrel potential on Quad 35; part of our 11/4 Licencing Option. 

·    Targets are accessible with one well (i.e. vertically stacked targets) having been mapped at several levels.

·     Petrel has mapped closure at its Quad 45 prospects against a major boundary fault  and outlined a number of vertically stacked targets.

Petrel Resources (AIM: PET) today provides a technical update on work done on its 100 per cent owned Quad 35 Licensing Options (11/4 and 11/6) on Blocks 35/23, 35/24 and the western half of 35/25, and Quad 45 Blocks 45/6, 45/11 and 45/16 in the Atlantic Margin.  These are located in the highly prospective South Porcupine Basin, in the Irish Atlantic Margin.

These blocks cover approximately 1,400 kilometres squared in total, in the northern and eastern sections of the Porcupine Basin.

David Horgan, Managing Director of Petrel, commented: "We have long known that Ireland's offshore Porcupine Basin is a hydrocarbon province.  There are established petroleum systems, reservoir sands and possible traps at several levels.  Our recent work has identified a number of high-potential prospects, at least one of which, we believe, has a billion barrel potential.

"Petrel will be presenting technical details of its work to date at the Atlantic Ireland Conference 2012, Dublin on Monday 12th November 2012."

Quad 35:  Stacked targets have been mapped at Eocene (Lower Tertiary), Lower Cretaceous and locally Jurassic levels.  This facilitates drilling and testing of several targets with one well.

 Eocene Target

•     The Eocene deltaic sand bodies lie in an ideal position for the entrapment of northward migrating hydrocarbons, generated from mature Middle / Upper Jurassic and possibly Lower Cretaceous source rocks.  

•     Updip seal is provided by marine flooding mudstone deposits.

•     Drill depths to the top of the Eocene sand sequence are about 2,500 metres subsea, in water depths of 700-800 metre.

•     Thick reservoir quality deltaic and shallow marine sandstones have been drilled in earlier wells in the region. 

•     The mapped sandbodies have the capability to host in-place reserves in excess of one billion barrels

Lower Cretaceous Target

•     A large mounded feature with four-way dip closure is onlapped by mud-prone seismic facies.  It is interpreted as a basin floor fan deposit, infilling and mounding residual Late Jurassic topography. 

•     The structure is undrilled but the seismic signature is significantly different from the mud-prone Lower Cretaceous strata drilled within the basin.

•     The large mounded feature directly overlies Upper Jurassic strata with proven mature source rocks.

Quad 45:  Stacked targets have also been mapped at Lower Tertiary and Lower Cretaceous levels:

•    Substantial area of structural closure forming a trap at Lower Cretaceous level against the major basin boundary fault.

•     Early Tertiary eastward updip thinning and stratigraphic pinchout of interpreted sand-prone succession.

•     Mounded, prograding Aptian-Albian basin-edge fan with updip shale drape / trap. 

•     Basal Cretaceous target horizons pinch out through onlap onto the basin margin.

•     Drill depths of up to 3,000 metres to the Lower Cretaceous marker in approximately 1,000 m water depth. 

•     Thick untested reservoirs derived from an easterly source (i.e. Celtic Platform).

These results are derived from Petrel's extensive database and updated in the following work programme, which has advanced rapidly in recent months:

•     Purchase of additional 2D seismic lines and re-interpretation of the integrated data set across both option areas.

•     Purchase of 3D seismic data, which is now being interpreted.  The 1999-2005 survey covers only the eastern portion of the Quad 35 blocks.

•     Petrophysical appraisal of 17 wells.

•     Inversion of selected 2D seismic lines to assess targeted reservoir sections.

•     Petrel Resources is funding two MSc research students at the UCD School of Geological Sciences at University College Dublin.

o A seismic project to detail the depositional facies and character of the identified sand bodies and potential reservoirs.

o A study of the provenance of the reservoir successions using petrographic analysis, followed by the application of the Lead-in-feldspar technique.

Next steps will include:

•     Completion of acoustic inversion of selected lines to assist in the assessment of the targeted reservoir sections.

•     Completion of the 3D seismic data interpretation in the south-east part of Quad 35.

•     A seismic / sequence stratigraphic project is underway to characterise the depositional facies of the Lower Tertiary and Lower Cretaceous successions in the option blocks.

•     A provenance study, involving petrographic analysis and the application of Lead-in-Potassium-feldspar geochemistry of the Lower Tertiary and Lower Cretaceous successions is underway. 

Petrel Resources is a diversified oil and gas exploration and production company, with interests in Ghana, Ireland and Iraq. The company has a signed petroleum agreement in Ghana, holds two licences in offshore Ireland and recently completed an exploration and production joint venture contract in Iraq.

Enquiries:

Petrel Resources Plc
David Horgan, Managing Director	[phone]
John Teeling	[phone]
Northland Capital Partners Limited
John Henry-Wickes / Alice Lane Gavin Burnell	[phone]
Blythe Weigh Communications	[phone]
Tim Blythe	[phone]
Robert Kellner	[phone]
Pembroke Communications
David O'Siochain	[phone]

www.petrelresources.com

 

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