GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration Inc has an­nounced it has spud­ded the Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1 well ahead of sched­ule.

The com­pa­ny added it is cur­rent­ly drilling the sur­face hole to a planned cas­ing depth of 900 feet.

“The sur­face lo­ca­tion is on the same drilling pad as the pre­vi­ous­ly drilled Cas­cadu­ra-1ST1 well with the bot­tom hole lo­ca­tion an­tic­i­pat­ed to be 1,300 feet to the south east,” Touch­stone said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

It added the well is tar­get­ing three dis­tinct Her­rera thrust sheets and is de­signed for a to­tal depth of 10,600 feet.

The cur­rent drilling plan is based on a 45-day drilling sched­ule.

As a re­sult of the ad­vance­ment of the Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1 well, the Com­pa­ny is de­sign­ing a pro­gram to com­mence test­ing of the Chi­nook-1 well pri­or to the end of 2020.

Touch­stone ex­plained the pro­gramme in­cludes co­or­di­nat­ing the mo­bi­liza­tion of the test equip­ment and ser­vice rig to be­gin test­ing im­me­di­ate­ly up­on cas­ing the Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1 well.

“ This ex­pec­ta­tion is sub­ject to a num­ber of un­cer­tain­ties, in­clud­ing re­ceipt of re­quired reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals, weath­er, and drilling op­er­a­tions at Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1,” Touch­stone said.

Paul R. Baay, Pres­i­dent and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, said,

“I am de­light­ed to re­port that the team con­tin­ues to push for­ward with op­er­a­tions at Cas­cadu­ra Deep-1 and Chi­nook-1 ahead of sched­ule.

“ While the pan­dem­ic has caused de­lays re­gard­ing the tie-in of Co­ho-1, we are pleased to have re­ceived ini­tial ap­provals for the ex­ten­sion of the Or­toire li­cence, a recog­ni­tion of the Trinidad Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to this ex­plo­ration pro­gram and a re­ward for the re­cent ex­plo­ration suc­cess that Touch­stone has en­joyed,” Baay said.

He not­ed his ex­ten­sion will pro­vide the com­pa­ny with the time re­quired to drill an ad­di­tion­al well and com­plete the re­quired seis­mic pro­gram in the first half of 2021.

“ I ask share­hold­ers to con­tin­ue to be pa­tient with us as we move for­ward and fi­nal­ize the gas pur­chase agree­ment with NGC, and I look for­ward to pro­vid­ing an up­date to the mar­ket in due course,” Baay added

Touch­stone added it has been for­mal­ly no­ti­fied by the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries that the ex­plo­ration phase of Or­toire ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cence has been ap­proved by the gov­ern­ment for a nine-month ex­ten­sion to Ju­ly 31, 2021.

In ad­di­tion, the com­pa­ny’s 2D seis­mic com­mit­ment has been re­duced from 85-line to 20-line kilo­me­tres.

The com­pa­ny said in ex­change for the ex­ten­sion and seis­mic pro­gram re­duc­tion, it has agreed to drill an ad­di­tion­al well to a true ver­ti­cal depth of 10,000 feet pri­or to June 2021.

The for­mal amend­ing doc­u­ment has yet to be ex­e­cut­ed by all par­tic­i­pat­ing par­ties, the com­pa­ny added.

It said it is await­ing fi­nal ap­proval of the re­quired Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance to com­mence Co­ho-1 sur­face fa­cil­i­ty op­er­a­tions, which is an­tic­i­pat­ed to be re­ceived by the end of No­vem­ber.

The com­pa­ny ex­plained that as a re­sult of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the process was de­layed due to com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tions that were re­quired to be per­formed on a one-on-one ba­sis ver­sus a tra­di­tion­al town hall meet­ing for­mat. Up­on re­ceipt of ap­proval and the re­quired no­tice pe­ri­od, field op­er­a­tions are ex­pect­ed to be­gin with­in ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 days, it added. “Touch­stone has all of the re­quired equip­ment in Trinidad to mo­bi­lize and there­fore ex­pects first pro­duc­tion from the Co­ho-1 well late in the first quar­ter of 2021,” the com­pa­ny said.

It added it con­tin­ues to ne­go­ti­ate the fi­nal de­tails of the nat­ur­al gas sales agree­ment with NGC.

The agree­ment, which in­cludes all fu­ture nat­ur­al gas sales from the Or­toire block, is an­tic­i­pat­ed to be ex­e­cut­ed pri­or to the end of the year.