Harvest Natural Resources Updates Drilling Operations in Indonesia
Harvest Natural Resources, Inc. (NYSE: HNR) announced today that the exploration well KD-1ST, being drilled onshore Sulawesi, has reached a total measured depth of 14,437 feet (13,576 feet true vertical depth) and is being plugged and abandoned with oil shows.
KD-1 was the second exploratory well of a two well program on the Budong PSC drilled to test stacked Miocene and Eocene targets within a thrusted anticline. Spud on June 20, 2011, the well was initially drilled to a depth of 9,633 feet and sidetracked after the drill string was severed. The sidetrack KD-1ST was initially drilled to a total depth of 11,800 feet and logged. The evaluation of cuttings, logs and sidewall cores demonstrated the presence of oil over a 200 feet section of low permeability and low porosity clastic rocks in the Miocene. The oil shows have proven the existence of a working petroleum system in the Karama Basin.
Harvest elected to deepen the well as a sole risk operation, to a final total depth of 14,437 feet to explore for the main Eocene objective. Although the well encountered both Oligocene and Eocene stratigraphy before drilling reached the BOP pressure limit, the primary Eocene reservoir target had not yet been reached. Biostratigraphy indicates the section at TD to be Eocene deep water shales. Nearby within the basin are a number of Eocene outcrops with known fluvial reservoir and source rocks, along with oil and gas seeps. Harvest expects to expense the net dry hole cost of $22.9 million in the current quarter.
