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Drilling of Kupe production wells reaches halfway
28 January 2008 - Drilling of the three production wells at the Kupe gas condensate project offshore from south Taranaki in PML 38146 is making good progress with each well reaching over halfway.
Operator Origin Energy says the ENSCO 107 jack-up drilling rig is batch drilling the wells as it is more efficient than drilling each well separately to its full depth.
The top 22 inch-wide section of all three wells has been completed to 560 m while the 17 inch section of the KS-6 and KS-7 wells have been drilled to the scheduled 2,000 m depth.
The latest well KS-8 had reached a depth of 1809m MDRT (measured depth from rotary table). Drilling of the 17 inch section will continue to the planned depth of 2,200 m at which point the 13-3/8 inch casing will be run and cemented.
Upon completion, the 12-1/4 inch section of KS-8 will be drilled and cased. This will be followed by drilling of the 12-1/4 inch sections of KS-7 and KS-6.
The lowest 8-1/2 inch well sections will be drilled in the three wells to a vertical depth of approximately 3,400 m.
Drilling of the production wells, which began on 19 December 2007, is expected to take around five months to complete.
The Kupe project is approximately 30 km off the coast. The project is expected to be completed by mid-2009 and produce approximately 254 petajoules of natural gas, 1.1 million tonnes of LPG and 14.7 million barrels of light oil (condensate).
Interest holders in Kupe are Origin Energy 50%, Genesis Energy 31%, NZOG 15%, Mitsui E&P Australia 4%.
