Strike poised to start vital drawdown phase at Jaws-1

well in the Cooper Basin, South Australia, with plans to proceed with a controlled drawdown that could increase gas production.

The company has been maintaining pressure in the Jaws wellbore at 250 pounds per square inch, or “psi”, and has been closely monitoring the reservoir and pump performance.

Management said that water flow rates have declined from 450 barrels per day in late June to the current 350 barrels per day while the Jaws and Klebb wells have exhibited strengthening gas flares as production rates slowly build.

The critical controlled drawdown phase will be delivered through an iterative process of small, incremental pump speed changes and monitoring of the water and gas response in the reservoir.

The super-deep, horizontal Jaws-1 well at Strike’s 66.67%-owned Southern Cooper Basin gas project is designed to develop gas flows from what would be Australia’s deepest commercial coal seam gas deposit.

Once gas desorption is achieved, the company should be able to book a reserve.

Strike was required to carry out workover operations on Jaws-1 after a spike in gas flows on 1 January 2019 caused a deposit of sand into the wellbore.

While this set the company’s schedule back, the gas spike is an indicator of the reservoir quality and its potential for future material gas flows.

The broader project area could host more than 11 trillion cubic feet of gas according to Strike and hooking this resource into the gas-hungry markets of eastern Australia would not be a chore at all given the easy access to gas transport infrastructure nearby.

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