Oilex Ltd has started oil production from its Cambay Oil Field in October in India with 16,800 barrels of oil produced during the December 2008 quarter from two wells.

Oilex commenced production from Miocene Basal Sand (MBS) in the Cambay Field on 17 October 2008 from the Cambay-64 well, which produced 9,374 barrels to the end of December. A second well, Cambay-74, was brought into production on 5 December, and produced 7,453 barrels to the end of the quarter.

Oilex Managing Director, Dr Bruce McCarthy, said the result was a pleasing start to Oilex’s production activities at Cambay, with significant potential to rapidly increase production levels over the course of the coming year.

“The commencement of oil production has been a landmark event for the Company, Dr McCarthy said. “Our focus in the months ahead will be to increase our production profile from Cambay by enhancing our off-take infrastructure, as well as by maintaining an active appraisal program to increase the Company’s reserve base.”

Production from the Cambay wells over the December Quarter was constrained by restrictions with oil off-take infrastructure, which led to limitations on daily production rates. The Company is currently sourcing an additional storage tank to alleviate this production constraint.

“Oilex is targeting sustained long-term production of 3,000 barrels of oil per day from the Cambay Field by the end of 2009,” Dr McCarthy said. “We are confident that these measures to enhance production from Cambay-64 and 74, together with the drilling of two additional wells, will enable us to reach this production level.”

Two additional development wells are currently planned for the Cambay Field in the second quarter of calendar 2009, with potential to add an additional 800-1,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd). During the December Quarter, integration of seismic data with reworked data from old wells were used to identify a number of high grade locations for these wells, which are scheduled to be drilled most likely in second quarter this year.

Tags: Oilex