While the main reflectors of the country’s hydrocarbon industry are located on Vaca Muerta, a small group of operators do not stop looking for more production in other parts of the country, and in that search the formation D-129, the “Dead Cow” of the south of the country adds interested firms. It is that from the Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC) were reported to have been successful in the drilling plan they carried out in the north of Santa Cruz, where they obtained productions of shale oil and also tight oil.
D-129 is the source rock of the hydrocarbons of the Golfo San Jorge Basin, shared by Chubut and Santa Cruz. It is one of the most interesting shale formations in Argentina -where there are 11 formations of this type identified- due to the amount of organic content that it is estimated to have, and which translates into its productive potential.
From the firm Tecpetrol they have been advancing since last year in a well located on El Tordillo, Chubut, to try to extract oil from the bedrock. And now it’s added CGCfrom the other side of the basin, in the block El Huemul, where four wells were intervened with unconventional fractures.
The result reported by the company was that In two of these wells, shale oil production was obtained in one case and tight oil production in the other.. In both cases, it was light oilstypical of unconventional formations, and very different from the API graduation that the conventional one has in that area.
In addition, from the firm chaired by Hugo Eurnekian, it was reported that two other wells were drilled and fractured in the Cañadón Seco block, where gas rich in liquids was produced.
The firm had already ventured into the search for shale of the southern formations, with a series of perforations destined for the Palermo Aike formation, also in Santa Cruz, but in this case within what is the Southern Basin.
The team problem
From CGC it was warned that in order to carry out this special campaign of unconventional fractures, had to overcome the problem not only of the lack of special service teams in the area, but above all pumps for said fractures, since they had to bring part of them from the Austral Basin and the Neuquén Basin itself.
It is that although in the conventional one fractures are carried out, they are very different in flow rates and pressures at which CGC carried out in these wells. But also, the plan collides with the migration to Vaca Muerta of teams and companies which has been going on for several months.
«These unconventional objective wells in the Gulf of San Jorge Basin They represent a strong bet on a new potential that will increase activity in the area,” said CGC Director of Operations, Pablo Chebli.. And he added that “it is a goal that has not yet been fully explored and we have great expectations for the future.”
CGC’s plan for 2023
The manager explained that the CGC work plan is not only in these explorations for this year and explained that they are “investing heavily in all the deposits of the basin, both in new and secondary recovery wells that were historically underserved.”
As he recounted, the roadmap for this year contemplates that “for the secondary recovery water injection is increasing and wells are being intervened, carrying out tasks with pulling and repair kits to restart wells that had equipment problems”. While he added that “we are carrying out conversions from wells to injectors and we are doing pre-feasibility studies to start polymer injection testing”, that is, with tertiary recovery.
The company expects to work this year with four drill rigs (two in Cuenca Austral and two in Cuenca del Golfo) and three completion, doubling the level of investment last year and adding the development of a “frontier” exploratory gas project in the Austral Basin, which was the only one of its kind incorporated in the last round of the Gas Plan.
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