Gulf Keystone has announced that an oil well has spud in the Shaikan Block in Kurdistan Region of Iraq
With this discovery, a drilling campaign has commenced to explore deeper and yet untested horizns of the Shaikan oilfield.
Shaikan-7 is the first deep exploration well in the Shaikan Block, targeting the mid-to-lower Triassic and potentially Permian horizons, that spudded beginning of this week.
The well is being drilled with the Weatherford Rig 319 close to the crest of the Shaikan structure, approximately one kilometre east of the Shaikan-1 well.
The independent oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) company said that Shaikan-7 is being drilled to the lower Triassic to evaluate the potential for significant quantities of light oil and to identify commerciality of the deeper Triassic reservoir.
“The well is then expected to penetrate the Permian, the deepest undrilled horizon to date on the Shaikan structure,” Gulf Keystone added.
The vertical well is planned to reach a total depth below 4,500 metres in the Permian and the drilling is expected to take about nine months, the company said.
John Gerstenlauer, chief operating officer of Gulf Keystone, said, “With Shaikan-7, we hope to confirm our expectations of major reservoirs beneath the deepest horizon drilled to date and add to what is already recognised as one of the world's largest onshore conventional oil and gas developments.”
