Echo Energy mobilises rig for campaign in the Austral Basin, Argentina

Echo Energy has mobilised the Quintana-01 rig for a three-well workover campaign at its Fracción D property in Argentina.

The rig has been relocated 250km by road from the western part of the Austral Basin to Fracción D in the eastern part of the Austral Basin. The rig’s deployment is based on a contract with Compañía General de Combustibles.

Rig-based activities on the three existing wells are expected to begin following three days of mobilisation.

Under the rig workover programme, all suspended oil zones will be abandoned and the discovered but uncompleted gas zones within the Springhill Formation will be completed. Rig operations are expected to take up to ten days.

In addition, the well testing period will be extended so that more data on existing gas volumes can be collected before any permits for a commercial development are granted.

Testing is likely to take a maximum of 30 days per well, which comprises flowing and shut-in periods to analyse reservoir pressures, connected volumes and flow rates.

It is estimated that the total cost of rig operations and testing will be around $0.55m per well.

Echo CEO Fiona MacAulay said: “We are delighted to be moving into this exciting workover campaign and look forward to updating our shareholders as the programme progresses.

“Alongside these workovers, we continue with the detailed engineering work programmes that are now being finalised for the back-to-back four well exploration campaign at Fracción C, where the drilling rig due to arrive on location in early May.”

Echo Energy is an upstream oil and gas company focused on the Latin America markets.