Virtus Oil and Gas Corp. (fka VOIL)

[blackgoldorbust]

EOG Resources Drilling Near Virtus

http://www.upstreamonline.com/hardcopy/1195508/eog-has-eyes-trained-on-utah-drilling-campaign

EOG Resources has filed for permits to drill a handful of exploration wells in the tricky Paradox basin in Utah, US, where operators have been frustrated by a series of stacked tight oil formations.

US-based EOG has submitted one application for a permit to drill a vertical stratigraphic test well on state lands in San Juan County, Utah, according to records from the Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining.

The Horn 1-17M well is permitted to be drilled to a total vertical depth of 6400 feet in to the Akah zone, part of a series of stacked shales and dolomites that make up the Pennsylvanian-aged Paradox formation in southeastern Utah. The area lies within the Blanding sub-basin of the Paradox basin near the town of Bluff, Utah, on acreage owned by the state.

EOG took over 23 leases on state land near the town, known as the Bluff Block, from US junior Morning Gun Exploration in June 2015, according to state records, with Morning Gun keeping a 2% overriding royalty interest on all but one of them.

The Houston-based company has been an active driller in Utah since 1997, operating in the Uintah basin in the north-east part of the state around the Greater Natural Buttes field though, earlier in 2015, it relinquished state-controlled acreage in Emery County without drilling a well. If EOG moves ahead with the Horn well, it will mark the first spud for the company in Utah since June 2012.

EOG has requested that records from the wildcat be kept confidential, which keeps them out of the public eye for a year.

Besides the Horn 1-17M well, EOG has applied to the US ­Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to drill a pair of horizontal wildcats on federally-owned land in Utah.

The BLM is beginning environmental analysis of the request to drill the Recapture 4-34H and Recapture 11-22H probes in San Juan County.

Both wells are planned as roughly 4500-foot laterals drilled along a north-south axis and both lie north-east of the proposed Horn vertical test well, according to BLM records.

The agency took public comments through the middle of November, before its planned environmental review for the project.

EOG estimated that each well would take eight to 20 days to drill and potentially another four months to schedule and complete a hydraulic fracture treatment, according to BLM records.

In addition to its holdings on state and federal lands, EOG picked up acreage in the Paradox through its $2.5 billion takeover of privately-held Yates Petroleum, which controlled 1.1 million acres across a variety of basins in the Rocky Mountain region.

Drillers have been chasing the potential of the hydrocarbon-rich Paradox formation for years, and have often been frustrated by the uneven results.

The Paradox itself contains a number of potential producing formations in addition to the Akah, with the most common targets being the Hovenweep, Gothic and Chimney Rock shale members, the last of which sits directly above the Akah. Anadarko Petroleum drilled a set of three horizontal wildcats into the Gothic shale member in 2013.

The best of the three flowed two barrels of oil during a 24-hour test and all three were plugged and abandoned last year.

The Horn well is the only drilling permit issued in San Juan County so far this year and only two were issued in 2015.

Moreover, EOG’s well will be just the second ever in San Juan County to test the Akah zone itself, assuming the secretive US independent lands the well in the Akah.

The other probe was Cactus Park’s 7-19 36-25 vertical well, drilled by US junior Summit Operating in 2010 that is currently listed as a natural gas producer.

AMERICAS SHALE
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