CORRIDOR HAS
BIG SPENDING
PLANS FOR
MCCULLY FIELD
Photo: © BP p.l.c.
TALISMAN FINDS A CURE FOR
INDONESIAN LNG HEADACHE
Talisman Energy Inc. says one of its subsidiaries has acquired all the shares of CNOOC
Wiriagar Overseas Limited from a subsidiary of CNOOC Ltd. for US$212.5 million, giving
Talisman a 3.06 per cent equity interest in the Tangguh liquefied natural gas (LNG)
project, in West Papua, Indonesia.
“I am pleased with this settlement,” said John Manzoni, president and chief executive officer of Talisman. “The purchase marks the end of a longstanding contractual disagreement inherited by both parties. I look forward to further developing our business in
the region and building on our relationship with CNOOC Ltd.”
Tangguh consists of a number of offshore gas wells, production facilities, pipelines,
and LNG plant facilities with a nameplate capacity of 7. 6 million tons per year. First LNG
is expected late this year.
Corridor Resources Inc. has established a 2008 capital budget of
$70.9 million, with the vast majority
earmarked for drilling and completing additional production wells
at its McCully gas field in southern
New Brunswick.
In 2008, Corridor will concentrate on drilling a number of development locations in the Hiram Brook
formation, within the proven and
probable area of the McCully Field
and deepening an existing well to
evaluate the deeper Frederick Brook
shale and the even deeper Dawson
Settlement sands.
As well, the company will drill
at least one exploration well on a
separate closure southeast of the
McCully field, where seismic suggests a potentially thick Hiram Brook
section could be located, and will
evaluate the thermal maturity of several potential sites in the Elgin area
ahead of horizontally drilling, fracturing, and testing the natural gas
production potential of the Frederick
Brook shale formation.
VERENEX
ENCOURAGED BY
LIBYAN POTENTIAL
Photo: Woodside
Verenex Energy Inc., a Canadian-based
international oil and gas company created
by Vermilion Energy Trust to pursue exploration opportunities in France and elsewhere,
says its first appraisal well on its Area 47
play in Libya has confirmed the potential of
a “large, exploitable” light oil reservoir.
The well, five kilometres west of the
discovery well, was drilled to a total depth
of 3,170 metres and encountered two oil
columns, measuring 48 metres and 32
metres and “increasing the exploration
potential of the block.”
Verenex has drilled and cased six new
field wildcat wells and two appraisal wells
on Area 47 since acquiring exploration rights
in 2005. Six of the wells have been fully
tested at a maximum aggregate flow rate of
more than 75,000 barrels of oil per day.
DOB SHOWS
MODEST GAINS
ON RIG COUNT
The Daily Oil Bulletin says January rig
activity in western Canada rose a bit from
the record low levels of late 2007, but at
65 per cent fleet utilization, the amount
of fieldwork going on in the heart of the
winter drilling season was still well below
historical norms.
Rig counts in Alberta and Saskatchewan
were down 10 per cent from a year ago,
the DOB said, as new well licences were
off six per cent from the year before.
Across Canada, an average of 568 rigs
worked in January, nine per cent below the
621 that worked in January 2007, and the
lowest January average since 2002. The
peak year was 2006, when 772 rigs were
working in January.
