The company’s Venus project is positioned at the heart of Queensland’s CSG-rich Surat Basin.

Diversified energy company Pure Hydrogen (ASX:PH2) is staying busy as testing ramps up at its fully-owned coal seam gas (CSG) site in Queensland.

The company announced this morning that completion of the first CSG pilot well at PH2’s Venus project in Queensland’s Surat Basin is expected to be commenced today.

The well will be set up for a three-month controlled drawdown test to confirm gas breakouts and measure flows.

With the well soon operational, PH2 will have a number of market updates in the coming months around the design of its expanded pilot program and the potential for future field development.

Nearology

Following today’s announcement, Stockhead caught up with PH2 managing director Scott Brown to get some extra context on the well updates.

For the Venus project, he highlighted the importance of its location in the Surat Basin which comprises “most of the key CSG areas in Qld”.

All of the major energy players have operations in the area, and PH2’s Venus project is “smack bang in the middle”, he said.

“It’s absolutely prime real estate, and if you look at a map you can see Origin and APLNG have drilled about 3km from out permit and they’re obviously flowing gas so there’s some good signs there.”

He added that PH2 is happy to get under way, following delays caused by the east coast weather system over the summer months which resulted in heavier than usual rains.

The company can now embark on a process to de-water the well and bring CSG to the surface, with updates expected in around three months.

“In that time we should have a gas rate and an idea of how the well and whole permit is going to perform,” Brown said.

“The other thing is we’ll get a contingent resource established this quarter which will be quite material for us.”

And if the current well program results in gas-to-surface results, the company could then be positioned to establish a gas reserve.

“Once you’ve got a reserve, all those major companies would be very interested in terms of a deal to get access to the gas,” Brown said.

Botswana

PH2 also provided an update on appraisal work at its Serowe project in Botswana, where it has a 51 per cent farm-out arrangement in place with local company Botsgas Pty Ltd.

The companies are carrying out a six-well appraisal program that’s designed to “upgrade existing high grade CSG (high saturated bright Serowe coals) prospective gas resources that have been certified to date”, PH2 said.

On that front, Brown said PH2 is leveraging the knowledge of company chairman Ron Prefontaine, who was previously an executive director at Arrow Energy where he was involved in pegging “a lot of the early acreage” of regional CSG sites.

The project was held up due to delays caused by the pandemic, but Brown said Botsgas can now go in there and get on with it.

“That’s shaping up as quite a good project because like Australia, gas prices (in Botswana) are quite high,” Brown said.

The company said successful appraisal wells will be “cased and suspended for subsequent completion and controlled drawdown testing similar to the Venus Pilot well”.

This article was developed in collaboration with Pure Hydrogen, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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