The Northwest Alice Prospect is located in central Jim Wells County and covers approximately five square miles in a NE-SW trend from three miles west to five miles north of the town of Alice, Texas.
Regional Geology:
This prospect is the northern extension of several significant Deep Yegua Gas Fields such as Ben Bolt, Braman, Starr Brite, Los Rubios and Four Sevens. These fields, in Jim Wells and Duval counties, have produced gas and condensate from all of the Yegua sands, but the two primary producing reservoirs are known locally as the Y-15 (Middle Yegua) and the Y-21 (Lower Yegua) sands. These sands are low-energy shelf deposits that have an average thickness of fifteen feet. These are blanket sands that exhibit lateral porosity and permeability variations.
Prospect Geology:
This prospect is a NE-SW trending, faulted anticline defined by subsurface geology and three conventional seismic lines. The structure is bounded on the southwest by the Delta-Gulf No. 1 Kalinec and on the northeast by the J.H. Robison No. 1 Buegeler. The Delta-Gulf well was drilled and completed as a Y-15 gas producer in 1954 with an IP of 13,500 MCF and 20 bbls/MMCF with a SITP of 3,900 psi. It flowed gas and condensate for four months with a cumulative production of 57 MMCF and 1,390 barrels. There is no data available to determine if this well went to water, pressure depleted, or was simply abandoned because its Gas-Oil ratio was not commercial at that time.
Potential Reserves:
The reserve estimate for the Northwest Alice Prospect is 100 BCF gas and 2.5 million barrels of condensate. This was derived by using a structure size of 3,200 acres with an average of 41 net feet of pay per well with a recovery factor of 750 mcf/Ac.Ft. with a liquids yield of 25 bbls/MMcf.
Project Status:
A leasehold position consisting of approximately 2,500 acres has been assembled over the prospect area. After the discovery in March, 2007 (RJ Hunter #1 Well) and a subsequent casing collapse in April, 2007 the operator Noble Energy completed a 3-D seismic survey over the prospect. These data are currently being interpreted and Emerald anticipates new development well locations being recommended for the second half of 2008 including a probable sidetrack and recompletion of the RJ Hunter # 1 discovery well (Y-21 sand) where the casing collapsed in April, 2007