NEWS BULLETIN

August 31, 2009 --- Vol. 15, No. 65August 2009

Rutter and Wilbanks restart drilling at Glennallen gas well

Texas-based Rutter and Wilbanks are back at the Ahtna 1-19 well site near Glennallen in Alaska’s Copper River basin to test a June 2007 gas find, using a Schlumberger coiled tubing unit.

“We’ve re-entered the well and we’re now at our previous kickoff point,” Bill Rutter Jr., the company’s vice president, told Petroleum News today. Rutter said that drilling at Glennallen had started around Aug. 22 and that, if the drilling works out as planned, the drill bit should enter the gas reservoir in a few days time.

“By the end of the week or over the weekend we should be testing it,” Rutter said.

The same coiled tubing unit that Rutter and Wilbanks is using for this latest drilling venture hit gas in upper Nelchina sands when drilling the Ahtna 1-19A sidetrack in 2007, but high pressure water flowing into the well bore above the gas reservoir stymied attempts to prove out the find. This time, the drilling team has attempted to plug the water source with cement under high pressure, before drilling a second sidetrack, the Ahtna 1-19B, to test the size of the gas pool.

Rutter said that he is fairly sure that there is 50 billion to 150 billion cubic feet of gas in the Ahtna prospect.

Editor’s note: Watch for full story in the Sept. 6 edition of Petroleum News, which will be available online Sept. 4, at noon Alaska-time, at www.petroleumnews.com


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