Echo Energy mobilises rig for three-well workover in Argentina

The AIM-traded firm said the Quintana-01 rig, on contract to Compañía General de Combustibles - the company's Argentinian partner - had been mobilised from the west of the Austral basin and would travel approximately 250 km by road to Fracción D in the east of the Austral basin.

Mobilisation was expected to take approximately three days after which the rig-based activities on three selected existing wells would commence.

For each of the workovers, Echo said the rig workover programme would consist of abandoning the previously producing, but now suspended, oil zones, and then completing the discovered but uncompleted gas zones within the Springhill Formation.

Each rig operation was expected to take up to 10 days, following which each well would be put on an extended well test to obtain further data on the existing gas volumes prior to any sanction of a commercial development, which would include the construction of a 28 km pipeline.

Testing of each well was expected to take a maximum of 30 days, including flowing and shut in periods to determine reservoir pressures, connected volumes and flow rates.

The total cost of the rig operations and testing was approximately $0.55m per well.

Echo said it would provide market updates, as appropriate, as the workover programme advances.

“We are delighted to be moving into this exciting workover campaign and look forward to updating our shareholders as the programme progresses,” said chief executive Fiona MacAulay.

“Alongside these workovers we continue with the detailed engineering work programmes that are now being finalised for the back to back four well exploration campaign at Fracción C, where the drilling rig due to arrive on location in early May.”