Touchstone hits pay at onshore well in Trinidad

Touchstone Exploration has made a significant oil and gas find at its onshore Cascadura-2 exploration well in Trinidad and Tobago, the Canadian E&P player announced on Thursday.

The well was drilled on Tuesday to a total depth of 2,170 metres, halting prior to the planned depth of 2,530 metres to preserve a substantial pay section.

Openhole logs and drilling data suggest a total sand thickness of around 160 metres in the targeted Herrera formation.

The well is being cased, with production testing scheduled for Q3 2024.

If brought to production, the well will be tied back to the Cascadura gas facility.

“The encouraging Cascadura-2 delineation well drilling results represent a great start to 2024,” said Paul Baay, president and CEO of Touchstone Exploration.

“Cascadura-2 has proved up the concept of highly productive sands extending significantly to the east of our initial Cascadura discovery. We estimate that the well was drilled for under USD 6 million on a gross basis, which further enhances the economics of this prolific hydrocarbon fairway.”

After casing the Cascadura-2 well, the Star Valley 205 drilling rig will be walked to the Cascadura-3 development well and spud within the next two weeks. The next development well targets the same Herrera formation as the existing Cascadura producing wells.

Touchstone Exploration also completed the first phase of additional perforations at the Cascadura Deep-1 well where the company is currently monitoring increased pressure and production rates.

Drilling of two wells from a single surface location at the company’s CO-1 block is expected to begin at the end of the month.

A flowline network will be installed to tie-in development wells drilled at the Cascadura C surface location, which is located approximately 1.6 kilometres northeast of the Cascadura facility.

An additional gas separator will be installed at the Cascadura facility to increase gas production capacity from around 90 mcf to 140 mcf.

In Q4 2023, the Cascadura field produced commercial volumes of 6,850 boepd.