Image source: KeyFacts Energy

Echo Energy plc, the Latin American focused upstream oil and gas company, announce a significant light oil column has been interpreted in its third well, onshore Argentina.

The EMS-1001 well, located in the Fraccíon C licence operated by Compañía General de Combustibles S.A. ("CGC"), reached a total depth of 2460m in the Upper Jurassic Tobifera formation across which significant gas and hydrocarbon shows were recorded.

Preliminary wireline log evaluation has now been completed, and a very significant hydrocarbon column has been interpreted between 1722m and 2220m in the Tobifera Formation. If hydrocarbon saturations across this section are confirmed, the preliminary evaluation might represent an interval of some 500m which could significantly open up the play for the area.

A final production casing is now being run prior to suspending the well for testing and the Company now anticipates the arrival of the test rig to the licences in July following completion of its current work programme elsewhere in the basin. The rig will now move to CSo-111(I), the fourth well in this current exploration campaign, located on the Company's Fraccíon D asset.

Following the potentially material scale of the results of this third well, the Company (together with its partner) is now undergoing a review of the testing and forward work programme. 

Fiona MacAulay, Chief Executive Officer of Echo, commented: 
"We are delighted that initial interpretation of our third well suggests a material and potentially transformational light oil column in the emerging Tobifera play of the basin, exceeding our high case expectations. We can already consider results for this well to date to be very encouraging from a volumetric and value perspective. Testing is the critical next step to establish the effectiveness and deliverabilty of the reservoir and we caution that any conclusions prior to test results would be premature. 

The Company will  now take the time required to confirm the early interpretation of the wireline logs and design an effective test program with a view to confirming the scale of our new oil discovery. 

Once again I thank the teams of both Echo Energy and CGC for their exemplary efforts during this programme and note the speed with which we have been able to progress our operations over these licences, benefitting significantly from the existing seismic data on block that has enabled us to fast track operations in a condensed time period."