88 Energy delivers more Alaskan oil sniffs

88 Energy has confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons in core samples at depths that showed good oil flows during drilling of the Merlin-1 well at its 100 per cent owned Peregrine project in Alaska. The company is targeting a gross mean prospective resource of 645 million barrels of oil from the well. Geochemical analysis to better understand the quality of oil and its migration pathways continues.

Two of five select trims from the side wall cores returned hydrocarbons, with results from a further 13 trims due soon.

Intriguingly, the hydrocarbons come from prospective oil zones that previously could not be sampled due to operational issues with the reservoir description tool used for downhole sampling.

The company previously reported hydrocarbons in two other zones going as high as 70 per cent from reservoir description tool sampling.

Additionally, observations of fluorescence on side-wall cores under UV light identified multiple horizons showing the presence of oil.

Management says the “highly encouraging test results to date serve to refine the company’s understanding of both the quantity and the mobility of hydrocarbons in place as well as the commercial potential of the greater Project Peregrine acreage”.

88 Energy plans to conclude analysis on the outstanding 13 trims before launching into a second phase of geochemical trim analysis.

The analyses will enable the company to grow its understanding of the quality of oil, the source rock and how the oil migrates in the broader Peregrine region.

88 Energy is also looking to evaluate the regional oil accumulation depths through an ongoing volatiles analysis service and from gas collected during drilling. Wettability of reservoir rocks will also be assessed.

Peregrine covers some 195,000 continuous acres of land and is located on trend to recent oil discoveries in the Nanushuk formation. New York-listed energy major ConocoPhillips recently reported between 750 million and 800 million barrels of recoverable oil at the Willow prospect.

About 50km north-east of Peregrine, ASX-listed Oil Search announced 3,520 barrels of oil per day in a production test-flow from the Stirrup well.

88 Energy plans to drill the Harrier-1 well at Peregrine next year where it is targeting 417 million barrels of oil in gross mean prospective resources.

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