Salamander awards Bualuang platform contract

Offshore staff

LONDON -- Salamander Energy aims to lift production from the Bualuang field in the Gulf of Thailand to around 10,500 b/d of oil this year.

Last year, the field in block B8/38 averaged 8,200 b/d following completion of its Phase IV development.

The Bualuang Alpha wellhead platform has been extended recently to accommodate further electric pump drives, allowing 10 of the platform’s 12 well slots to be used as oil producers. Current drilling will result in 10 producers and two water disposal wells being in service.

Last year, after raising its interest in the block to 100%, Salamander decided to accelerate the Bualuang development plan. During 4Q 2010, the company initiated design, construction, and installation of the 16-slot Bualuang Bravo wellhead platform – a contract was awarded earlier this year, with delivery scheduled for mid-2012.

This platform will double the number of horizontal production wells on the field with drilling starting during the first half of 2012. These new wells will complete a skimming network across the attic of the reservoir, which should increase production to 15,000 b/d in 2013.

A 3D seismic survey over the B8/38 license last year defined numerous prospects, including Bualuang East Terrace, an undrilled fault terrace adjacent to the main Bualuang field; and the Bualuang NW Terrace, a series of small fault terraces directly on the oil migration fairway from the basin center to the Bualuang field.

Salamander aims to drill the B8/38 prospects this year after the Ocean Sovereign jackup rig has completed development drilling on Bualuang.

Offshore Indonesia, the company operates the Bontang PSC (100%). Last November, the Angklung-1 well, drilled in the offshore portion of the license area, encountered 23 m (75 ft) of net gas pay in Lower Pliocene sandstone. Analysis confirmed high reservoir porosity and permeability.

The well flowed at 24 MMcf/d of gas constrained from a 10-m (33-ft) interval. The gas is sweet, with no indication of H₂S or CO₂.

Angklung’s gas-bearing Pliocene sandstone correlates with strong amplitude anomalies on the 3D seismic data. Salamander estimates mean resources of 290 bcf in the Pliocene sands over the structure, and applying this seismic calibration to the adjacent Kecapi and Bedug prospects in the same channel sand complex gives potential mean resources of 209 and 344 bcf, respectively.

Angklung-1 well also encountered a gross 256-m (840-ft) section of inter-bedded sandstones and shales in the deeper Upper Miocene section. This was interpreted to contain 120 m (393 ft) net of oil- bearing, low-permeability sandstones.

Sandstone of this thickness in the Upper Miocene was not seen in previous wells on the acreage. Salamander is analyzing the depositional setting and distribution to aid efforts to identify an oil play fairway, which it may explore late this year.

Finally, Salamander operates block 101-100/04 in the Hanoi Trough offshore northern Vietnam, awarded in March last year. The main prospectivity is a “buried hill” oil play containing structures on trend with the producing Beibu Wan fields to the east and the recent Ham Rong oil discovery to the west in adjacent block 106.

Block 101-100/04 is covered by 2D and 3D seismic data and these will be used to locate a well on the 99 MMbbl Cat Ba oil prospect, which should be drilled in 3Q 2011 by the jackup Aquamarine Driller.

03/24/2011