High permeability readings from the upper coal seam at TMK’s Snow Leopard-3 well are broadly consistent with those found in Snow Leopard-2 in the Gurvantes XXXV CSG project.

The high permeability reading of 47 milidarcy (mD) over the 70m of coal intersected in the upper coal seam bodes wells for future coal seam gas production from what is only a small part of the 8,500 km2 Project area.

Coal core from the well has also been sampled for gas desorption testing with preliminary results indicating that the seams contain high gas content consisting mainly of methane (95%) with low levels of CO2 (2.8%).

TMK Energy (ASX:TMK) added that the additional 13m of coal intersected in the upper coal seam came about after fixing a broken core barrel and drilling deeper into more coal.

However, poor hole conditions at a depth of 348m required the current wellbore to be abandoned, leading the company to redrill the well at the same site to target the lower coal seam.

“The excellent permeability results from the upper seam at SL-03 and SL-02 are very encouraging for the future commercialisation of the project,” chief executive officer Brendan Stats said.

“High permeability in very thick, shallow, gas saturated coal seams should translate to lower development costs and potentially strong initial flow rates.

“The pilot program, currently in the planning phase, will provide definitive data on these last remaining key data points and will allow us to demonstrate to the market the ability to produce commercially viable gas from the coal seams.”

More coal to be found

Snow Leopard-2 had intersected 21m of gassy coals in the lower seam. This represents a substantial addition to the coals intersected in the upper seam if the Snow Leopard-3 redrill also strikes this seam.

Once operations on Snow Leopard-3 are completed, TMK and its partner Talon Energy (ASX:TPD), which is earning a 33% working interest in Gurvantes XXXV by spending US$4.65m under a two-stage farm-in, will move on to drill the fourth and final well in the current program.

The four well program is aimed at delivering important data such as coal thickness, gas contents, gas composition and permeability that will enable estimation of contingent resources and aid in the design of a pilot production program.

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with TMK Energy, 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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