Blue Star Helium Ltd (ASX:BNL, OTC:BSNLF) has a busy schedule planned for 2022, starting with an exploratory water well program of four or five wells at the Galactica and Pegasus prospects in Las Animas County, Colorado, USA.
The first two water wells, JXSN#1 and JXSN#2, have been constructed ahead of helium exploration wells planned for mid-year.
Exploratory water well program
Blue Star is focused on rapidly advancing further drill planning and permitting across its key prospects in 2022, including a mix of exploratory water wells and helium exploration wells.
The exploratory water wells will front-run helium exploration, appraisal and production drilling at the Pegasus/Galactica prospects, where Blue Star also has a further potential 29 helium exploration well locations in its permitting pipeline.
“The continuation of our successful exploratory water well program this year reflects the large benefits that we are able to both deliver and receive from undertaking this combined ESG and geologic evaluation initiative,” Blue Star managing director and CEO Trent Spry said.
Alongside the ESG water infrastructure benefits to the local community, the company is able to glean substantial data that contributes to Blue Star’s geologic evaluation and prospect advancement.
This was seen with the breakthrough BBB#1 well at Voyager prospect, allowing for confident acceleration of helium well location targeting and development drilling.
ESG and data collection benefits
“Exploratory water wells enable us to obtain extensive data that, as was the case at the BBB#1 water well, allow us to accelerate helium well location selections for appraisal and development drilling,” Spry said.
“At the same time, we are delivering landholders in the local Las Animas community critical new water resource data and valuable water infrastructure for their long-term private and commercial use. We look forward to further success as the program across Galactica and Pegasus is carried out.
“Voyager has been fast tracked for development after the breakthrough success of the BBB#1 exploratory water well which returned a 134-foot gas column in the Lyons formation with a calculated air-free helium concentration of 8.8%,” Spry said.
“This is a similar gas composition to the historic Model Dome field which had one of the highest in-situ helium concentrations both in the US and globally."
The Enterprise 16#1 well completion and testing program has been approved by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), and the company is securing a workover rig to start work.
Permitting underway
A rolling permitting and drilling campaign is in progress, with 47 permits in the works and 10 helium wells, including Enterprise 16#1, expected to be permitted and drilled during the year, and exploratory water wells across the portfolio.
“We are aiming to permit and drill 10 helium exploration wells across the Blue Star portfolio this year, which started with the recent drilling of the Enterprise 16#1 well,” Spry said.
“The Enterprise 16#1 well successfully identified a deeper gas water contact at the Enterprise prospect than was previously interpreted. The completion and testing program has been finalised and approved by COGCC and we look forward to executing it shortly.
“The next well set to be drilled is Sammons 315310C in our AMI with Vecta over the Serenity prospect. We look forward to the expected drilling of that well during the current quarter.”