88 Energy Ltd (LON:88E), in a statement, said that recent well results “support the potential economic viability of the HRZ shale play”.
The junior oil and gas firm’s quarterly activities report comes after the suspension of the Icewine-2 well programme.
“The joint venture believes that results from the well support the potential economic viability of the HRZ shale play and are within the range of outcomes achieved at other early stage unconventional plays, despite not achieving a flow rate that is representative of the capability of the reservoir,” it said.
READ: 88 Energy suspends Icewine-2 but remains upbeat
“The suspension operation was designed to maximise flexibility for the future use of the wellbore, including the drilling of a horizontal side-track with a multi-stage stimulation.”
It added: “The joint venture believes that the flowback data, combined with results to date from core and logs, demonstrates that the HRZ is comparable to other early-stage commercial unconventional plays and that, as per those plays, progressing to horizontal appraisal wells is now the best use of time and money.
“Future evaluation of the large potential already identified is planned to be accomplished via farm-out and this process has already commenced.”
The company has separately advanced its conventional exploration programme, which has so far been driven by 3D seismic.
Data acquisition earlier this year, and, early data products are anticipated to be available in ‘mid-2018’. It is expected that the data packages will allow for the mapping of leads in the conventional exploration portfolio.