All holes reach oil bearing layer / Shorter drilling time thanks to section drilling

Heidelberg / Denver. The five horizontal wells of Tekton's Pavistma-Bohrplatz, which have been in operation since the end of August, were successfully completed yesterday. The oil-bearing Codell and niobrara layers were all reached, the planned drilling time could be significantly undercut. The five holes will be completed during October and are expected to begin production of oil and gas by mid-November.

For the first time, Tekton tested a new section-wise drilling procedure ("batch drilling") for these holes. Instead of completing one hole after the other, as usual, and then completing the drill, the holes were divided into sections and the same section was drilled for all five holes. By mounting the drill on rails, the section changes can be done with very short changeover times. Through this procedure, the processes improve significantly. In particular, it reduces the number of hours that different service providers need to be on site, as well as the times when equipment is being rebuilt.

This novel process is known from other oil fields in the USA. However, Tekton is the first company to use the batch-drilling process in the Wattenberg field. As a result, it was possible to drill faster and thus at lower costs. While Tekton calculates 14 days drilling time according to the industry standard, now completed holes will require about 10,5 days per hole.

This Monday, the rig will be brought to the nearby Frye Farms well site, where three more wells will be drilled in the next few days. Tekton plans to drill a hole in the so-called codell layer, two in the niobrara zone. Tekton's share of these holes is 98,5%. A second drill is expected to commence drilling in mid-November from another Diamond Valley East well site.

Jerry Sommer, CEO of Tekton Energy, commented: "We are very pleased with the results of our horizontal drilling program so far. Our team drilled the first seven holes faster and cheaper than expected from the experience of other, even very large, companies. "