Roxi, the Central Asian oil and gas company with a focus on Kazakhstan, has unveiled plans for the next stage of its flagship BNG asset.
The BNG Contract Area is located in the west of Kazakhstan, near Tengiz on the edge of the Mangistau Oblast. Roxi has a 58.4% stake.
Since an operational update on 13 February 2015, the final 164 feet of coil tubing and drilling fluids have been successfully cleared from Deep Well A5.
The well remains blocked by a drill bit dropped during the clean up operation.
Work continues to remove the drill bit to allow testing. Based on progress to date, Roxi’s management still expects the well to be clear and testing to have commenced by the end of March.
Despite the blockage small quantities of oil of a high quality continue to flow to the surface under its own pressure.
Deep Well 801, which was spudded on December 15, is to be drilled to a total depth of 16,240ft. The well is being drilled by Sinopec, the Chinese multinational, for a fixed cost of £7.3million.
Roxi said drilling at Deep Well 801 had reached the salt layer at 11,680ft without incident. As planned, drilling has now paused to allow casing to be set.
The final 1,017ft to be drilled to a Total Depth of 16,240ft is expected to be less difficult to drill.
Roxi expects the well to reach total depth by mid April.
Chairman Clive Carver said: “Operationally things are going well. The work to clean up Deep Well A5 continues as planned and to date drilling Deep Well 801 has been a far smoother experience than our first deep well A5.
“We are also particularly pleased that our extended swabbing activities at Well 143 have been rewarded with what appears to be commercial rates of production of naturally flowing oil.”
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