Egdon Resources reports the start of drilling operations at the Keddington oil field in Lincolnshire Licence PEDL005(Remainder).

Egdon holds a 75% interest in and is operator of the PEDL005(Remainder) licence. The joint venture partners are Terrain Energy Limited ('Terrain'), which holds a 15% interest and Alba Resources Limited ('Alba'), a wholly owned subsidiary of Nautical Petroleum plc, which holds a 10% interest.

The Keddington-3 well will be drilled as a re-entry and horizontal sidetrack from the Keddington-2y 'donor' well which was drilled by Roc Oil in 2000. The well has been contributing 25-30 bopd to field production since being recompleted for pumped production by Egdon in early 2009. However, well productivity has been restricted since the well was drilled, by the presence of a drilling assembly stuck in the open hole just below the existing casing and perforations. It is intended to significantly increase field production and hence profitability by drilling the Keddington-3 sidetrack which is planned to penetrate approximately 500 metres of new horizontal section largely in the oil productive Unit 1 Sandstone.

The British Drilling and Freezing Limited BDF28 drilling unit began mobilising to site on 29th March and operations began on Thursday 1st April. The plugging-back of the existing well has now been completed and the drilling of the sidetrack commenced at 20.00 hours on 6th April from a kick-off depth of 2250 metres. The well is intended to be drilled directionally to a total measured depth of 2850 metres. Drilling and completion operations are expected to last a total of around three weeks.

The well is expected to be completed for pumped production using the existing surface production facilities shortly after the rig is released from site.

Production from the adjacent Keddington-1z well has been suspended for safety reasons during the drilling operations and will resume once the rig has been demobilised from site.

The commencement of drilling operations at Keddington also triggers a payment of £50,000 from Terrain as the final part of the consideration for the acquisition of its interest in the licence.

Tags: Egdon Resources Plc