Blue Energy (ASX: BLU) has achieved early success with its plans to increase gas flow rates at its Sapphire pilot testing program in Queensland’s North Bowen Basin.
After identifying an opportunity to overcome technical issues at the project, Blue is currently undertaking Sapphire 5/6 pilot production testing operations.
To date, the pilot wells are continuing to flow gas at increasing rates, currently hitting 150,000 cubic feet per day (cfd).
The company is looking to obtain similar average flow rates to the 200,000cfd being recorded in wells in the adjacent Moranbah gas project.
The lowest coal seams in both Sapphire pilot sets are now being de-pressured in the current program and effective gas desorption is occurring as the water levels near the top of these seams.
Blue identified a low-cost opportunity to improve gas flow at Sapphire earlier this year, following a recommendation for the proposed “twinning” of one of the existing lateral wells to target a single coal seam.
That program would be undertaken without a drilling fluid program and with no additives, after an independent review identified potential formation damage related to a component of the fluid used in the pilot well drilling.
The review was conducted to investigate why flow from the Sapphire 5 and 6 lateral pilot wells was below what was expected and lower than the rates of neighbouring projects.
It was also discovered that the lowermost coal seams in the wells remain below the current water level in the vertical wells and will require de-watering.
Following the completion of the 2022 pilot drilling campaign, Blue announced independently-assessed resource and reserve upgrades for the Sapphire Block that saw 2P and 3P gas reserves increased to 91 petajoules and 287PJ, respectively.
The increase in Sapphire 2P reserves reflected 80% of the total envisaged gas supply volume required under a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Queensland Pacific Metals (ASX: QPM).
Under the MoU, Blue would supply gas to the proposed QPM nickel refinery in Townsville.
免責聲明：投資有風險，本文並非投資建議，以上內容不應被視為任何金融產品的購買或出售要約、建議或邀請，作者或其他用戶的任何相關討論、評論或帖子也不應被視為此類內容。本文僅供一般參考，不考慮您的個人投資目標、財務狀況或需求。TTM對信息的準確性和完整性不承擔任何責任或保證，投資者應自行研究並在投資前尋求專業建議。