Amerisur Resources Hits Oil at Indico Well in Colombia

UK-based independent full-cycle oil and gas company confirmed that Indico-1 well in Colombia reached target depth of 10,604 feet and encountered the Lower Sands of the Une formation.

The South America focused oil and gas producer, which owns 30% non-operated working interest in the Indico-1 well, said the Lower Sands package is the same formation which holds the 120 feet oil column discovered at nearby Mariposa, which lies some 6.5 kilometres to the North West of Indico-1.

The Mariposa well has produced at a stable rate of approximately 3,200 barrels of oil per day in natural flow from 10 feet of perforations near the top of the 120 feet oil column for over a year, during which time it has produced over 1.2 million barrels of oil with no significant water cut, which remains at 0.05%.

The well Indico-1 has now been logged with a Triple-Combo wireline logging suite from Schlumberger. Initial analysis by the Company indicates that a 283 feet gross, 209 feet net, oil column is present in the LS3 formation. The LS3 unit is a high quality sand with some shale intercalations, principally towards the base.

The LS3 unit sits upon Palaeozoic basement. In the Company's initial analysis, no Oil-Water-Contact (OWC) was detected in the wireline logs acquired to date, hence the base of the oil column encountered at the Palaeozoic level represents a Lowest-Known-Oil for the Indico structure.

The next steps for the well operations include the acquisition of further wireline logging data, including pressures and samples across the reservoir. A 7-inch production liner will then be run and cemented followed by short term testing of the well.

Once operations are complete at Indico-1, the rig will move to drill Sol-1, which is a further 6.5 kilometres south of Indico-1 and approximately 13 kilometres southeast of Mariposa-1. The Sol-1 well will also target the LS3 unit as encountered in Mariposa-1 and Indico-1.

 John Wardle, CEO of Amerisur said: "In our view the principal pre-drill risk in this well was the presence of significant sand development in the Une formation. The results of the drilling have significantly exceeded our expectations in this respect and of course the very significant oil column encountered means we will have to review, with our partner ONGC Videsh, the resources associated with the Indico structure."

"The fact that no OWC was encountered is also very positive for the eventual size of recoverable reserves within the structure. Naturally, given this result, the Company and our partner will be reviewing options for further appraisal wells into the Indico structure in the short term, which will be required to further extend and define the resources encountered,"John added.

"Our impression now is that we are developing an important play fairway within the LS3 unit of our large CPO-5 block, which will be further explored with the drilling of Sol-1 post short-term testing of Indico-1," he said.