While the company remains somewhat guarded in revealing results until it gleans more information from well logs, rumors of a significant hydrocarbon discovery from Savant Resources’ B1-38 (Red Wolf) well at the Badami field appear to have a basis in truth.
When asked for results at the B1-38 well, testing the Red Wolf prospect at the eastern North Slope field, company executive Greg Vigil e-mailed the following on Feb. 1:
“A review of the measurement while drilling logging suite has reasonably determined the primary objective Kekiktuk formation had an apparent water contact with additional gross interval above it. Although we cannot say definitively that the apparent hydrocarbon interval is filled with movable light oil.
“Additionally another hydrocarbon bearing interval was encountered in a shallower secondary objective formation.
“A significant amount of hydrocarbon has been introduced into the drilling mud system, and in the interest of health, safety, environment and preserving our investment in the well, no additional open-hole diagnostic work will be conducted and preparations are being made on the drilling rig to run a production liner over the prospective pay zones.
“As such, additional diagnostic work on both prospective pay zones will come in the form of production testing. The timing of this work is yet to be determined.”
Vigil also wrote: “The 5-1/2 inch liner is on bottom and to be cemented shortly.”
The Denver-based independent is drilling at Badami through an arrangement with unit operator BP, which hopes improved recovery rates can jumpstart the troubled field.
Savant began the well in early 2009, but cut the drilling program short last April because of poor weather conditions on the North Slope. The company returned this winter — building a new ice road to the site — and resumed drilling using Doyon rig 15.
Red Wolf is an oil prospect in the Ellesmerian Kekiktuk formation, a rock unit equivalent to the oil reservoir in BP’s Endicott field. Savant also plans to drill a horizontal sidetrack into younger and shallower Brookian rocks from the Badami B1-18 well, to see if horizontal wells can better produce from the challenging Brookian reservoir at Badami.
See story in Feb. 7 issue, available online at noon, Friday, Feb. 5 at www.PetroleumNews.com
