Egdon holds a 75% interest in and is the operator of the PEDL005 (Remainder) license. The joint venture partners are Terrain Energy, which holds a 15% interest and Alba Resources, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nautical Petroleum, which holds the remaining stake.
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 25-30bopd 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 below the existing casing and perforations. It is intended to increase field production and hence profitability by drilling the Keddington-3 sidetrack, which is planned to penetrate approximately 500mt of new horizontal section largely in the oil productive unit 1 Sandstone.
The British Drilling and Freezing BDF28 drilling unit began mobilizing to site last month and operations began on April 1. The plugging-back of the existing well has now been completed and the drilling of the sidetrack commenced from a kick-off depth of 2250mt. The well is intended to be drilled directionally to a total measured depth of 2850mt. 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 demobilized from site.
The commencement of drilling operations at Keddington also triggers a payment of GBP50,000 from Terrain as the final part of the consideration for the acquisition of its interest in the license.
