The Macquarie/Brookfield-led consortium completed the acquisition of Apache’s Western Australian business, renaming the business Quadrant Energy, according to partner Carnarvon Petroleum.
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Phoenix map. From Carnarvon. |
Quadrant's take over will include all of Apache’s Australian production assets, exploration permits, including the Phoenix blocks (WA-435-P, WA-436-P, WA-437-P and WA-438-P), and the management team and staff.
Apache announced its plans to sell its Australian exploration and production business, Apache Energy Ltd., to a consortium of private equity funds managed by Macquarie Capital Group Ltd. and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. for US$2.1 billion, in April.
Quadrant moving forward
Quadrant will now move to drill the Roc-1 well with a jackup in 4Q 2015, which is situated in around 80m of water depth.
Quadrant and JX Nippon will fund drilling and testing costs within WA-437-P to $70 million. The current estimate to drill the Roc-1 well is around $45 million.
It is anticipated a successful Roc-1 well will be suspended to allow for re-entry within six to 12 months to complete more extensive well sampling and to flow test the well. This decision is based on factors pertaining to government approvals, cost and drilling processes. Given the probability of success estimated for the Roc prospect, planning is also underway for the drilling of additional exploration and appraisal wells in late 2016.
As previously reported in January 2015, two new multi-client seismic programs are being acquired over the four exploration permits that make up the Phoenix blocks. In early April, before the Phoenix area was estimated to contain 48-232 MMbbl of contingent and prospective recoverable oil.
The multi client 3D seismic project (Capreolus MC3D) is one of the largest single site surveys ever undertaken in Australian waters, and reflects the exploration interest within and around the Bedout Sub basin.
The joint venture will license approximately 5100sq km of the Capreolus MC3D and approximately 60% of this has now been acquired.
The 3D data is expected to be processed and ready for interpretation early in 2016. The new 3D will complement the 1100sq km Phoenix MC3D acquired in 2010/2011 and the 3854sq km Zeester MC3D acquired in 2011/2012.
Reprocessing of the Phoenix MC3D is also nearing completion.
New 2D seismic data is being acquired over the majority of the remaining approximately 12,000sq km of the Phoenix area. Acquisition of this data, Bilby MC2D, is approximately 45% complete.
Prospect generation is the key activity following seismic acquisition, processing (including reprocessing) and interpretation. Given the timing of the different 2D and 3D surveys, it is anticipated that further prospect maps will become available at different times over the next 18 months.
Prospect mapping within the Zeester MC3D area is expected to be complete before the end of this year. Prospect generation within the Phoenix MC3D area is anticipated to be complete by early 2016. Prospect mapping for the Bilby MC2D and Capreolus MC3D areas are not expected to be complete until mid to late 2016 or possibly early 2017.
The Quadrant-led joint venture continues to work through post-well analysis of the Phoenix South-1 well and the surrounding wells in the permit including reservoir development and quality, the type and potential source of the oils discovered and where it may occur further in the permit. The amount of technical work being undertaken to evaluate a newly discovered hydrocarbon province necessitates a more thorough evaluation than for more established basins such as the Carnarvon and Dampier sub basins within the North West Shelf.
Two broad areas of study are currently being undertaken – those related to regional work around understanding this new hydrocarbon province and secondly those related to the reservoir characteristics with a view to understanding the potential development of the Phoenix South oil discovery and other prospective oil reservoirs in the province.
For the former, fluid inclusion studies are complete on all the previously drilled wells in the region which, when finalized around the middle of this year, will be incorporated into regional interpretation.
Along with petroleum system modeling and newly acquired seismic data, this will generate regional mapping and ultimately a portfolio of prospects across the Phoenix blocks.
For the Phoenix South discovery, special core analysis (SCAL) is ongoing and expected to be complete by the end of calendar 2015. This allows for better delineation of the flow characteristics and recovery from the reservoir rock. This work will be integrated into static and dynamic computer models with a view to having a better handle on the range of possible recoverable oil by the end of this year.
The joint venture has sufficient time to fully evaluate the recent Phoenix South-1 oil discovery, drill and assess the upcoming Roc-1 well and complete the regional petroleum review within the exploration permits.
Given the extent of the work being undertaken the government recently agreed to extend the license term until August 2017.
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