Calima Energy has kicked off its three well drilling campaign in the revered Montney formation in British Columbia, Canada, with the spudding of the Calima-1 vertical well.
Calima-1 will be drilled to a total depth of 1860m to provide stratigraphic calibration and core samples for measurement and analysis.
Management said a full suite of wireline logs will be acquired to confirm the depth of the two horizontal wells that will be drilled immediately after completion of the first well.
The horizontal wells will be fracture stimulated and put on an extended production test over a period of 4-6 weeks.
A success at this stage will allow Calima to convert at least some of its resources from prospective to the higher confidence contingent level.
Calima currently owns a 100% interest in 72,014 acres of Montney drilling rights that it says could potentially host gross prospective resources of up to 2.16 trillion cubic feet of gas and 114.42 million barrels of liquids.
Managing Director Alan Stein said: “We are delighted to get this drilling campaign underway … and we look forward to presenting further results over the next few weeks.”
The Montney is hot property right now with horizontal wells drilled at the play back in 2017 achieving a peak average daily gas production of just over 5.5 million cubic feet per day.
Success rates have also been high with just 2% of the 5000 wells drilled to date failing, due largely to mechanical issues.
This is due in part to the excellent “fracability” of the Montney geology, which increases the likelihood that the formation creates complex fracture networks when fracture stimulated. This in turn allows hydrocarbons to flow in greater quantities.
The Montney is also thicker than most unconventional oil and gas plays, allowing for multi-layer completions from one surface location.
