Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd, along with its partners, has received all required permit approvals to resume horizontal drilling and flow testing activities at KW1X. New permit approvals include the Environmental Clearance Certificate and the horizontal drilling permit amendment.
Following the receipt of these final regulatory approvals, the whipstock has been set and sidetrack drilling at KW1X has commenced.
Production casing was removed to a vertical depth of 2,289 metres where the open-hole whipstock has been set in place. Drilling of the sidetrack has commenced and is scheduled to take approximately one month. The sidetrack well design targets a horizontal wellbore of up to 1,000 metres in the upper zone of the Huttenberg formation to optimally intersect the natural fractures across the Kavango structure.
The horizontal wellbore could potentially transect thousands of vertical or near-vertical natural fractures. The well will be completed “open hole”, without casing or cement, to maximize the flow rate from the natural fracture system.
Flow testing will occur immediately following the well completion and will be tested after the wellbore has been swabbed to remove all drilling muds and cuttings but prior to an acid wash. Flow testing is intended to establish sustained flow rates, reservoir pressure response and the liquid yield and composition in the production flow stream.
Additional fluid and gas samples will be collected for laboratory analysis. Testing could take up to one month with flow test results expected to be disclosed prior to year-end
Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd is the operator, BW Energy (20% working interest), and the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (10% carried working interest)
