EKHO Project to commence operations
Curlew Lake Resources Inc CWQ
Shares issued 22,764,526 Nov 17 close $0.15
Thu 18 Nov 99 News Release
See Aster Ventures Corp (ASV) News Release
Mr. David Patterson reports
The Ekho Project operator, Tri-Valley Oil & Gas Co. (TVOG), has begun site
preparation for the first well of its deep oil and gas exploration play
located east of Lost Hills, Calif., and expects to start rigging up by Dec.
6, 1999, says Joseph R. Kandle, TVOG president.
The Ekho Project's first prospect keys off two deep wells, including the
1972 Tenneco/Great Basins 31X-10, which for a time held the California
depth record at 21,640 feet, and the 1977 Tenneco/Union/Great Basins 66X-3
well, which bottomed at 18,876 feet as America's deepest oil producer
according to the February, 1999, issue of World Oil Magazine.
Mr. Kandle was vice-president and chief engineer for Great Basins Petroleum
from 1972 to 1981 and oversaw the drilling of several deep, high pressure,
high temperature wells, including the 31X-10 and 66X-3, in California's
Great Central Valley. The southern portion is called the San Joaquin Valley
and its deeper horizons are emerging as North America's biggest onshore oil
and gas plays with targets in the billions of barrels of oil and trillions
of cubic feet of gas in place.
TVOG began its quest after purchasing the old Great Basins well log and map
library in 1997 and retained its former president, Charles Hatten, as a
geological consultant. In reviewing the Great Basins deep plays, TVOG
believed that techniques developed in the ensuing 25 years could overcome
adverse downhole conditions and began leasing land along the trend.
"We are especially emboldened by the downhole information contained in the
logs of the 66X-3 well, which is loaded with oil and gas shows for an
interval exceeding 10,000 feet. Reprocessing techniques and new studies
have further enhanced the prospectively of this area," Mr. Kandle said.
While Tenneco was the operator drilling the 66X-3, Kandle was Great Basins'
vice-president and chief engineer and is very familiar with the well and
the untested potentials it indicates despite its abandonment by Tenneco in
1977. "The whole deep play is a gift from the major oil companies walking
away from California as an exploration province in the last 25 years," Mr.
Kandle noted.
"We are beginning our Ekho project about eight miles east of the Bellevue
No. 1 which blew out last year at Middle East rates and believe we are
about 2,000 feet high to that structure," Mr. Kandle said. In 1998, a
different group of Canadian and American companies began drilling a deep
test around the Lost Hills oilfield, 45 miles northwest of Bakersfield,
Calif. At 17,646 feet the well blew out at initial rates estimated to
exceed 100 million cubic feet per day, confirming TVOG concepts about the
potential of huge reserves with high deliverability rates at depth.
"With our Canadian partners, we are entering the new century and the new
millennium with a bonanza-type international play, smack in the middle of
the premier market of California, the world's seventh-largest economy,"
says Lynn Blystone, president and chief executive officer of Tri-Valley Oil
and Gas.
The Ekho Project comprises the following companies: Aster Ventures Corp.
(VSE:ASV) -- 20 per cent; Curion Venture Corp. (VSE:CUV) -- 20 per cent;
Lucre Ventures Ltd. (VSE:LVD) -- 12 per cent; Berkshire International
Mining (VSE:BKR) -- 10 per cent; CVL Resources Ltd. (VSE:CVL) 9.64 per
cent; Consolidated Bradbury International Equities Ltd. (VSE:CBN) -- 5 per
cent; Curlew Lake Resources (VSE:CWQ) -- 5 per cent; Pan Ocean Explorations
(VSE:POE) -- 5 per cent; and Prairie Pacific Energy Corp. (ASE:PRP) -- 5
per cent.
(c) Copyright 1999 Canjex Publishing Ltd. canada-stockwatch.com
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