Gulf Keystone’s Akri-Bijeel discovery report puts oil-in-place at 2.4 bln barrels

Gulf Keystone Petroleum’s (LON:GKP) stake in the Akri-Bijeel oil discovery looks set for a boost after its oil-initially-in-place estimate was put at 2.4 billion barrels (P50).
The company has a 20 percent stake in the Akri-Bijeel field in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.
Akri-Bijeel’s operator MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas has now submitted a ‘discovery report’ to the Kurdistan Ministry of Natural Resources.
Bijeel-1 struck oil in March 2010. Subsequently in June, Bijeel-1 produced 3,200 barrels of oil and 933,000 standard cubic feet of gas per day, from the Jurassic formation between 3,804 and 3,967 meters.
MOL then sidetracked the well to overcome technical problems, then in early November a joint test was performed, to produce 3,743 barrels of oil and 618,826 standard cubic feet of gas per day.
It is thought that this level could be increased significantly with the use of artificial lifting systems.
MOL said it will use the discovery report in its planning of an appraisal program for Akri-Bijeel.
Arkri-Bijeel is one of four contiguous fields that Gulf Keystone has a stake in. The most advanced, and highest profile, is the Shaikan oilfield.
It first struck oil at Shaikan back in August 2009. The size of the discovery quickly came into focus, with Gulf Keystone finding several layers of reservoirs. Subsequently Shaikan’s oil-in-place resources were estimated at around 1.9 billion barrels with an upside to 7.2 billion - in a P90 to P10 range.
The first well was not able to test the deeper reservoirs and just last week the first deep appraisal well, Shaikan-2, was spudded to test the entire structure.
Shaikan-2 has been drilled through the geopressured sections of the Triassic age rocks, as well as the Cretaceous, Jurassic and the Triassic all the way down to the Permian, with target depth of 5,000 metres.
Drilling and testing is expected to take six months.