Having received all necessary approvals of the Field Development Plan (FDP) for Barda Rash during November 2011, the Company has commenced the development programme that will initially target approximately 500 million barrels of light recoverable oil out of the independently assessed 1.43 billion barrels total recoverable volume.
Phase I development work is focused on the existing BR-1, BR-2 and BR-3 wells that have been drilled at the field to date. The three wells will be sequentially re-entered, worked over, tested, completed and bought onstream. The wells will be tied back to a modular Early Production Facility that is being installed at the central BR-1 well location. Assembly of the Romfor 23 rig has been completed at the BR-1 well location, and final preparations are being made to re-enter the well.
The Company is on track to commence production at Barda Rash by August, and expects all three wells to be onstream and producing at a rate of between 10,000 bopd to 15,000 bopd by year end. Acquisition of a comprehensive block wide 3D seismic survey has also commenced and is progressing well. The objective of the survey is to provide additional data that will assist in future development planning and well placement combined with enhancement of the Company’s understanding of fracture zone distribution.
Post completion of this initial phase, the Company will commence the drilling and completion of multiple new development wells with the intention of increasing production to a planned trucking capacity of 35,000 bopd and ultimately to a targeted 125,000 bopd by 2017. Following this, the Company will focus on the development and production of the heavier oil resources, which will offer further large scale production growth.
On 17 April 2012, the Company announced that the Simrit-2 exploration well had discovered a significant oil accumulation based on the results of drilling, wireline logs and sidewall core sampling. The objective of the Simrit-2 exploration well was to test the western extent of the Simrit anticline. The well was initially drilled to its prognosed total measured depth of 12,139 ft (12,129 ft true vertical depth) and successfully encountered an estimated 1,342 ft of net oil pay in Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic age reservoirs, an estimated 1,024 ft of which is interpreted as containing light oil. No oil water contact has been established in the target reservoirs.
As there were continuing strong hydrocarbon shows to the planned depth of 12,139 ft, Afren and operator Hunt Oil Middle East ran casing at that depth and continued drilling to a new total depth of circa 12,467 ft to test additional zones of prospectivity. Drilling operations are expected to be completed by the end of May, after which a comprehensive well testing programme will be undertaken across multiple reservoir intervals.
Testing operations are expected to take up to two months to complete. Following this, the drilling rig will be mobilised to the East Simrit prospect to drill the Simrit-3 exploration well. Given the scale of the oil column that has been intersected with the Simrit-2 well, the initial volumetric estimates for the Ain Sifni PSC are being updated to incorporate the new data.
