Tri-Valley Corp (fka TVLYQ)

[jonesieatl]

Tri-Valley Corporation Rigs Up For Ekho Deep Frac

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PRNewswire
09:15 a.m. 12/03/2004


BAKERSFIELD, Calif., Dec 3, 2004 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Tri-Valley Corporation (TIV) is rigging up to perform its long-awaited pioneering super deep hydraulic fracture job on its Ekho No. 1 well about 45 miles northwest of Bakersfield, California. For the first stage of the program approximately 3.5 miles of 3 1/2 inch tubing will be pulled from the well and replaced with 4 1/2 inch tubing to allow the bottom hole pressure to be substantially increased to much more effectively break down the designated Vedder sand formation between 18,000 and 18,500 feet.

Once the tubing is changed out, Schlumberger will move in its Ultra High Pressure Frac Unit and accompanying team of scientists and technicians to set a new record for performing, by far, the deepest frac job ever attempted in California.

Tri-Valley set the North American record for the fastest, longest single drill bit run when it drilled the well in early 2000, drilling 10,045 feet in 116 hours and went on to reach total depth at 19,085 feet in 86 days, including intermediate logging and two core samples. The latter were valuable in confirming copious saturation of 48 gravity sweet oil and 1,460 Btu sweet natural gas. Independent estimates of the oil and gas in place in the four main saturated zones over some 2,000 feet are in the range of 166 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) for the 320-acre producing unit formed around the well bore. Cutting the normal conservative recovery factor of 25% in half, Tri-Valley is aiming for an ultimate recovery of around 20 million BOE if the frac will enable the well to deliver at commercial flow rates from this one producing unit alone.

The deep formations are so dense, the oil and gas cannot flow through them fast enough to the well bore for recovery at commercial rates. Hence, the need to fracture the zones to create more pathways to flow the petroleum. Many wells deeper and with higher temperatures and pressures than Ekho No. 1 have been frac-ed and achieved high production rates around the world, but none have all the same characteristics as Ekho No. 1. After extensive study with worldwide consultants and vendors, Tri-Valley has designed a program for which it gives a high success potential.

Tri-Valley plans to apply a combined total bottom hole pressure of up to 27,000 pounds per square inch (Psi) to fracture the formation several hundred feet in radius around the well bore to create myriad new pathways for oil to drain. And it expects the well to take up to several weeks for the frac fluid to be recovered before it can be determined what the oil and gas flow rate will be.

"Our incentive to pursue this completion is driven by the fact that we know that high quality oil and gas are there and we are looking at recovery potentials in the one billion dollar range if our program design is successful. We may have to try more than once and we may get more or less, but the prize is well worth persistence for our shareholders and drilling partners," said F. Lynn Blystone, president & chief executive officer.