Pantheon Resources plc, the AIM-quoted oil and gas company, has announced that it has formally accepted and paid for the award by the State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for the 39 540 acres that it was the successful bidder of in last year’s state lease sale. The company awaits formal granting of the leases from the DNR, expected in the near term, subject to standard formalities.
25 460 acres of this award is the northern extension (the Chimney) and updip portion of our Theta West Basin Floor Fan. 14 080 acres of the award fills in around Pantheon’s Alkaid and Talitha Units along the Dalton Highway and Trans Alaska Pipeline. The new acreage covers an extension of the existing discoveries which the company was able to delineate off its existing proprietary 3D seismic. Whilst a full evaluation of this new acreage is ongoing, the company expects an upgrade in its resource base from this addition of new acreage in due course. In December 2022, SLB completed phase 1 of its Static and Dynamic reservoir model where it ascribed 10.9 billion boe in place to the portion of the Basin Floor Fan (BFF) complex within Pantheon’s existing leases. The extension into this new acreage was not part of the original SLB estimates.
The BFF resources in this additional acreage are structurally higher, or ‘updip’ from the Theta West #1 discovery well. Being structurally higher in shallower reservoir depths yields an expected improvement in the reservoir properties because of less compaction due to a shallower Dmax (maximum depth of burial). The expected improvement in reservoir qualities should lead to increased recovery and better reservoir productivity. The company intends to test the BFF reservoir in these new leases at a depth of approximately 6 200 ft, some 750 ft higher than where it was discovered in Theta West #1, in the next Theta West appraisal well. Shallower drilling targets reduce drilling costs and, combined with expected higher productivity, should enhance the economics of any development in this location.
Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/exploration/01062023/pantheon-resources-accepts-lease-award/
