Good question. Depends on the company. If it is a promotional type company, you may get little technical detail in the release. If it is a respectable, full-cycle exploration and production company, you will get a decent release with substantial information. For an example, check out one of the latest releases from Northstar Energy (NEN) regarding their Burmis and Racehorse Creek wells. The release talks about production testing, porosity, etc...
Basically, even if you hit a "reservoir", have good-looking logs, etc... you do not know what you have until you obtain some core samples to test for permeability and porosity (permeability describes the ability of a rock to allow flow through it. Porosity describes the voidage or air space within a rock. eg: a rock with good porosity, and with all the voids full of oil and gas, may not flow well because there is no permeability... that is, the voidages are not interconnected)
For the deep Foothills type wells, you need to run downhole recorders to measure pressure vs. time of production to determine reservoir characteristics and size. Also, a production test would be nice. The longer, the better. Roughly 3-6 weeks for foothills type wells, but it could be longer, even months.
The NEN release gives a good example.
Hope this helps. Just like in mining where certain standards apply in core sampling and handling (ie: split the core and keep half in storage) the same applies to oil and gas with technical issues.
Hope this helps.
mike |
