Invictus in potential hydrocarbon findings

AUSTRALIAN energy firm Invictus Energy Limited (IEL) says it has found some potential hydrocarbons — the principal constituents of petroleum and natural gas — several hundred metres into drilling its Mukuyu-1 well.

Invictus has made significant progress at the Cabora Bassa project, located in northern Zimbabwe near the Mozambican border since it started drilling several weeks back.

It has two drilling sites, the Mukuyu-1 and Baobob-1 well but drilling is ongoing at the former.

In an update released yesterday, Invictus reported that it had reached the second phase of drilling several hundred metres and identified hydrocarbons at a width of 12 ¼”.

“Since the last update, the 12 ¼” hole section has been completed and section Total Depth (“TD”) was called at 2021 metres measured depth (“MD”) in order to set the 9 ” casing near the base of a substantial regional seal above the primary targets,” it said.

“Following the completion of the first suite of wireline logging, a zone of interest in the secondary objective in the 200 Horizon target coincident with observed seismic amplitude anomalies was interpreted to contain potential hydrocarbons based on significantly elevated resistivity (two orders of magnitude above baseline) across a 10-15m interval from approximately 785m MD and separation between shallow, medium and deep resistivity readings.”

Invictus said further study of this zone revealed tight reservoir characteristics and complex mineralogy; and that it was, therefore, decided not to run the formation pressure/sampling wireline tool in the absence of the suitable sampling probe and packers.

“The decision was made with careful consideration of several factors, including the ability to obtain valid pressure measurements and fluid samples in tight reservoir and significantly overbalanced hole conditions with the increased risk of tool sticking and potential loss due to the heavy mud weight used in this hole section,” Invictus said.

Wire logging is the practice of making a detailed record of the geologic formations penetrated by the drilling activities.

It means that Invictus is now at a point to identify what is inside the rocks as it prepares to reach the target points within the hole.

The miner said it would carry out more research and use the acquired data to examine alternative sites to test this target further in a crestal location and away from the fault plane where improved reservoir quality may be present.-newsday