Buccaneer reaches depth at Kenai Loop

The Kenai Loop No. 3 well has reached a total depth of 11,000 feet as of Oct. 5, and operator Buccaneer Energy Ltd. now plans to perforate and flow test three zones.

The Australian company is drilling the onshore exploration well to look for natural gas in the area north of the city of Kenai.

The three zones total 225 net feet of pay.

The first, Zone 2, is 70 feet of “stacked, partly conglomeritic sandstones and is laminated” at a total depth of 9,850 to 9,920 feet. Zone 3 is 95 feet of “stacked, massive, conglomeritic sandstone channel sandstones” from 10,160 to 10,255 feet.

Those both correspond to zones in the Kenai Loop No. 1 well that Buccaneer drilled earlier in the year, but Zone 4 is 60 feet of “stacked channels and is laminated” from 10,560 to 10,620 feet, below the total drilling depth of Kenai Loop No. 1.

Buccaneer described all three zones as having “good porosity and permeability.”

Kenai Loop No. 3 also passed through Zone 1, 55 feet of “stacked, conglomeritic sandstones,” and despite natural gas shows deemed the zone “too tight” to test.

Buccaneer said a promising zone at 9,700 feet in Kenai Loop No. 1 isn’t productive at Kenai Loop No. 3, but “is expected to be encountered at other locations” in the field.

The flow testing is expected to take seven to 10 days to complete, the company said.

Buccaneer is gearing up for its third well, Kenai Loop No. 2. The well will be located at a second drilling pad located a mile away. The pad is “prepared and ready for drilling.”

—Eric Lidji