Project Profile
Value: $17,000 Million
Startup Year: 2013
Upstream Oil Reserves: 2,500 million bbl
Salamander was awarded Block L15/50 as part of the Thai 20th Licensing Round in December 2007.
The block is to the southwest of the Sinphuhorm field and west of the Nam Phong power plant. It contains a gas discovery called Dao Ruang made by Texaco in 1993 which is reservoired in a thick sequence of Pha Nok Khao carbonate and flowed small amounts of gas from various intervals spaced over a total vertical section of 600m.
Salamander has acquired the first high resolution 3D seismic in the Khorat Basin over the Dao Ruang prospect. This should image the fractures within the reservoir and enabling the horizontal wells to be targeted at the fractures. This technique is applied on tight gas plays elsewhere in the world and could unlock a multi-Tcf gas province if successful.
Whilst analogous and similar in size to the Phu Horm field, the Dao Ruang feature lies beneath flat arable land and the depth to the top of the reservoir is half that seen at Phu Horm. This will result in cheaper drilling operations. In December 2009, Salamander farmed out 40% of Block L15/50 to Origin Energy.
The Dao-Ruang appraisal well was drilled in Q1 2011 but, despite encountering gas shows, failed to flow at a sustained commercial rate and was suspended for potential re-entry at a later date.
The MB Century 26 rig was mobilised to the Dao Ruang-3 (\"DR-3\") drilling location. The DR-3 well will target a separate fracture set on the northern flank of the Dao Ruang structure with a different orientation to those seen in DR-2, providing a greater chance of encountering an open fracture network and an opportunity to test at a commercial flow rate.
Dao Ruang is a 1993 Texaco gas discovery that has potential gross mean resource of 500 Bcf.
Operator: Ophir( Ophir bought Salamander in 2015) (50%)
Partners: IFC (10%), Origin Energy (40%)
Expiry: 21 January 2034