Incremental Petroleum provides a further update on results of the ongoing drilling programme on its wholly owned Selmo oilfield in southeast Turkey.

Selmo 41 well was drilled in 2003 by the previous owners of the oilfield to a total depth of 5,950 feet - to the base of the Lower Sinan Dolomite (LSD) reservoir and completed open-hole. After only 6 months of production, the wellbore became unstable and collapsed. The average daily production over this period was about 120 barrels of oil per day (bopd).

In 2007, IPM decided to sidetrack the well by cutting a window in the casing and drilling a new wellbore through the shale. An inclined hole, rather than a horizontal was chosen in this well based on the 2003 well performance with a 5 inch liner set in the sidetrack through the shale to the upper part of the Middle Sinan Dolomite (MSD).

A 4 1/8" wellbore was drilled through the MSD and the well was swabbed at a stable rate of about 50 bopd. It was decided to deepen the well into the LSD to seek better production rates. The well was deepened to 5,833 feet (5807ft total vertical depth).

The well was completed at a cost which was about 5% below budget. The total open hole section was swabbed at rates of about 100 bopd. Swab performance suggests that large water bearing fractures were transmitting substantial volumes of water into the wellbore, in effect competing with the oil production. The drilling rig has now moved off location and the current operation is sequentially testing each zone with inflatable packers to identify and then isolate the water bearing fractures.

If successful, this operation has the potential to increase the 100 bopd produced on swab test.

As the Selmo 41 well has not produced for many years, the additional production to be gained from this well is the first ‘new’ production to be brought on stream since Incremental acquired the Selmo field in late 2005.

Tags: Incremental Petroleum