BPRL drilling faces land hurdles
Land acquisition problems are likely to delay the drilling of a fourth exploration well at Cambay onland block CB-ONN-2010/8 operated by Bharat Petro Resources (BPRL).
"BPRL has yet to take possession of the land for the fourth well (Pasunia-4)," says an industry source. "To overcome the problem they are planning to drill a directional well from an adjacent location." Pasunia-4 is located some 30-km from Pasunia-2 (the second well spud on April 10 and drilled to 2130 metres)." Instead of keeping Essar's 1000-hp land rig MR-1 idle, BPRL has decided to carry out a cement plug job at Pasunia-1, where it discovered oil at 1700 metres in the Cambay formation.
"Essar's rig is on the move as we speak," said a BPRL source on August 5. Separately oilfield service provider Schlumberger is about to finish carrying out cement bond logging and variable density logging at the third well spud on June 15, renamed Vadod-1 from Pasunia-3.
This well was drilled to 2152 metres before it was handed over to Schlumberger on July 30. BPRL has committed six exploration wells at this block.