OIL and gas exploration firm, Invictus Energy, says further preliminary wireline results from the Mukuyu-1 ST1 well in Muzarabani indicate strong multiple potential gas-bearing zones, highlighting the likely existence of hydrocarbons within the Cabora Bassa basin.
The Australia-headquartered firm is exploring for oil and gas in Muzarabani, Mashonaland Central province after a France-based company, Mobil, in the early 1990s, carried out initial seismic surveys but decided not to follow it up.
In a trading update on Thursday, the mining firm’s managing director, Mr Scott Macmillan, said preliminary evaluation indicates multiple potential gas-bearing zones coincident with intervals that displayed elevated gas shows during drilling of the original Mukuyu-1 wellbore.
“The preliminary wireline results from the Mukuyu-1 ST1 well have provided us with further encouragement and indicate multiple potential gas-bearing zones, which are relatively consistent with the original Mukuyu-1 well results,” he said.
“Results to date have been highly encouraging, with multiple data points highlighting the likely existence of hydrocarbons within the Cabora Bassa basin.”
However, Mr Macmillan said although the borehole conditions remain favourable for a successful logging program, delays in concluding the evaluation programme are frustrating.
“With the wireline cable stuck above the wireline tools, we are optimistic fishing operations will be successful and allow us to continue the sampling program with the aim of obtaining a fluid sample to enable a formal discovery to be made,” he said.
“Tool failures and unforeseen delays are an unfortunate but common occurrence in frontier oil and gas exploration.”
Invictus said following the primary log acquisition, multiple downhole failures were encountered with both the primary and backup wireline formation testing tools. The firm then requested a trading halt while it assessed the potential impact to prior guidance around the timing of wireline logging operations.
It said the primary tool has since been successfully repaired and re-run and attempts to obtain a sample to prove movable hydrocarbons were able to recommence. However, during the wireline sampling program, the wireline cable became lodged against the wellbore and multiple attempts to free the cable were unsuccessful.
“The cable is stuck above the wireline formation testing tools, which significantly increases the chance of retrieving the tools and continuing wireline logging operations to obtain a fluid sample,” said the company. Mukuyu is one of the largest oil and gas exploration prospects to be drilled globally in 2022, targeting a combined prospective resource potential of 20 trillion cubic feet and 845 million barrels of conventional gas condensate, or about 4,3 billion barrels of oil equivalent on a gross mean un-risked basis. Anticipation is high that Invictus will announce a commercial discovery of either or both oil and gas after initial tests indicated the presence of a working hydrocarbon system in the well.
Initial exploration work has been promising, and points to a significant resource, setting Zimbabwe on course to becoming an oil and gas-producing nation. In 2020, the Zimbabwe government classified the Muzarabani project as one of the priority development projects, which can provide a significant economic benefit to the economy in pursuit of an upper middle-income economy by 2030. – The Chronicle
