Maari partners drill to large second zone

Partners in the Maari oil field say they have found a substantial second zone of oil and successfully drilled a horizontal production well through the reservoir containing an estimated 30 million to 40 million barrels of oil-in-place.

The field operator is OMV NZ (69 per cent share), with Australia's Horizon oil (10 per cent), Todd Maari (16 per cent) and Cue Taranaki (5 per cent) holding the remaining stakes, according to the oilvoice.com website.

Austrian-based OMV is already a large player in New Zealand, where it owns a 26 per cent stake in the Pohokura gas field, the country's second-largest, which came onstream in October 2006.

Horizon Oil says the M2A sandstone reservoir is about a quarter of the size of the oil-in-place in the main Moki formation.

A horizontal well MR9, 1209m in length, was drilled through the M2A reservoir and encountered net oil pay over half the distance - about660m.

Horizon Oil says an estimate of the recoverable reserves for the Miocene-aged M2A sands will not be available until production data for the MR9 well has been obtained and a development plan for the zone established.

Horizon has previously estimated the M2A zone would contain about 12 million barrels.

The latest oil-in-place figures suggest the recoverable reserves could be greater than this.

The partners' plan is to produce from the MR9 well from the M2A zone on an intermittent basis whenever there is available capacity in the production system.

- NZPA