Empyrean Energy pleased with progress at Dempsey 1-15

China, Indonesia and US-focussed oil and gas development company Empyrean Energy announced on Tuesday that it has been informed by Sacgasco, the operator of the Dempsey 1-15 well in the Sacramento Basin, onshore California, that the well is currently drilling ahead in 8 1/2" vertical hole.

The AIM-traded firm said that during drilling, well mud weights had been increased regularly to 13.5 ppg to control “increasing levels” of background gas.

Multiple zones of “significantly higher than background” gas shows had also been encountered whilst drilling, and the best zone of gas shows had a gas level of over 500 times the background gas.

The company said the significance of those shows would become more apparent when the next wireline logs were run to more fully evaluate the encountered gas shows and reservoirs.

That was planned after reaching the proposed total drilling depth of approximately 3,200 meters.

Empyrean said the Dempsey 1-15 well was currently drilling ahead at 2,182 m to the under-explored deeper targeted reservoirs in the remaining 890 m of section to be drilled.

It said Dempsey was drilling the largest known, yet undrilled, mapped structural closure in the northeastern part of the prolific Sacramento Gas Basin, and was interpreted to be “optimally located” to trap gas migrating out of gas generating areas located to the west and south.

“On an operational level Empyrean continues to be impressed with Sacgasco and its local operational team's ongoing planning and execution of this exciting well,” said Empyrean CEO Tom Kelly.

“From a technical viewpoint we are once again encouraged to see gas shows in zones that the pre-drill prognosis predicted would be interesting.

“We look forward to providing further updates as drilling progresses.”