The Cana­di­an en­er­gy com­pa­ny op­er­at­ing in T&T, Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration, in an op­er­a­tional up­date, said the Cas­cadu­ra-3ST1 well has been cased and pro­duc­tion test­ing is sched­uled to com­mence in the third quar­ter of 2024, di­rect­ly in­to the Cas­cadu­ra nat­ur­al gas fa­cil­i­ty.

In a news re­lease re­cent­ly, Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration said the Cas­cadu­ra-3ST1 de­lin­eation well was spud on March 4 from its Cas­cadu­ra C sur­face lo­ca­tion and reached a to­tal depth of 8,252 feet on March 29.

The en­er­gy com­pa­ny in­di­cat­ed that while drilling the well, a high-pres­sure gas kick was en­coun­tered at a depth of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7,500 feet which re­sult­ed in well­bore in­sta­bil­i­ty is­sues, and as a re­sult, a por­tion of the well­bore was redrilled via a side­track.

Touch­stone said it is cur­rent­ly pro­gress­ing with the 1.6-kilo­me­ter road and flow­line project, span­ning from its Cas­cadu­ra C sur­face lo­ca­tion to the Cas­cadu­ra nat­ur­al gas fa­cil­i­ty.

Present­ly, it said the flow­line right-of-way has been ful­ly cleared and grad­ed, road con­struc­tion is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 65 per cent com­plete, and the wa­ter­course cul­vert cross­ings are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 per cent com­plete.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the pro­cure­ment of the flow­line has been fi­nalised and the com­pa­ny has is­sued a ten­der to lo­cal con­trac­tors for the in­stal­la­tion of the flow­line and bridge con­struc­tion. Progress has al­so been made on the Cas­cadu­ra fa­cil­i­ty ex­pan­sion project. The en­gi­neer­ing de­signs and Haz­ard and Op­er­abil­i­ty analy­sis (HA­ZOP) have been com­plet­ed and a new nat­ur­al gas sep­a­ra­tor has been pro­cured,” the re­lease out­lined.

Al­so, it not­ed that progress has been made on the Cas­cadu­ra fa­cil­i­ty ex­pan­sion project and the en­gi­neer­ing de­signs and HA­ZOP have been com­plet­ed and a new nat­ur­al gas sep­a­ra­tor has been pro­cured.

As it per­tains to The CO-374 de­vel­op­ment well, Touch­stone said the well which is lo­cat­ed at its CO-1 block, was spud on March 1 and reached a to­tal depth of 5,684 feet on March 22.

It said the tar­get­ed low­er for­est for­ma­tion was en­coun­tered at a depth of 3,491 feet and the up­per cruse for­ma­tion at a depth of 4,578 feet.

Touch­stone’s pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Paul Baay, said "We are pleased with the suc­cess­ful re­sults from the two de­lin­eation wells at Cas­cadu­ra, with both wells demon­strat­ing the qual­i­ty and scale of the struc­ture. In ad­di­tion, the Cas­cadu­ra-3ST1 well is the first to cross the C-fault to the east side of the struc­ture, an area where re­serves have not been pre­vi­ous­ly as­signed. The CO-374 de­vel­op­ment well is al­so note­wor­thy, as it has the high­est net pay we have ob­served to date on our crude oil lega­cy blocks."

The en­er­gy com­pa­ny has an 80 per cent op­er­at­ing work­ing in­ter­est in the Cas­cadu­ra field, which is lo­cat­ed on the Or­toire block on­shore.

Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed ("Her­itage") holds the re­main­ing 20 per cent work­ing in­ter­est. Touch­stone has a 100 per­cent work­ing in­ter­est in the CO-1 block via a sub­li­cense agree­ment with Her­itage.