Touchstone finds light oil after first Royston production tests

CANADA-BASED Touchstone Exploration has announced light oil discoveries at its onshore Trinidad Royston-1 exploration well.

The company shared details of the findings in a statement on Monday.

"The recovered oil was light, sweet crude with an average 33-degree API (corrected to 60-degree Fahrenheit) with sampling throughout flow testing indicating an average 94 per cent oil cut with some solution gas present but not measured," it said.

It said the first and deepest Royston-1 completion and exploration test was designed to evaluate an interval at the bottom of the well in the intermediate sheet of the Herrera Formation.

The completion spanned a 92-foot gross interval below 10,434 feet, which was identified on wireline logs as being hydrocarbon-bearing.

Touchstone president and CEO Paul Baay issued a statement after the discovery, saying, "We are excited to announce this further, large oil discovery at Royston-1. The results are the reason why we find the geology in Trinidad's hydrocarbon-charged basin so exciting.

"This oil discovery will allow us greater flexibility for the pace of development of the project, as we have the opportunity to design production facilities while we are selling crude oil testing volumes."

James Shipka, Touchstone's chief operating officer, also commented on the findings.

"Trinidad continues to provide us with rich hydrocarbon opportunities as is evident from the latest test results at Royston," he said.

"The unique opportunity at Royston is that we can design a production profile from day one that includes low emissions from reinjection of gas and/or produced water to maintain reservoir pressure and enhance recovery factors.

"We really do have two distinctly different oil plays to exploit in both the intermediate and overthrust sheets of the Herrera, and based on analogous pool data, we have a template to optimise production and recoveries.

"Additional exploration opportunities, including the Royston subthrust and the underlying Cretaceous prospects, provide exciting future drilling inventories to be investigated as we work to bring discovered reserves onto production. We are in an enviable position of having a multi-year exploration and development programme ahead of us as we continue to grow in Trinidad."

The company encouraged stakeholders to view its latest corporate presentation "to fully understand the areal extent of the Royston structure and its potential."

It said the presentation also provides a glimpse of the underlying Cretaceous exploration opportunity.

"We now have an exciting development project along with the upside from the remaining exploration in the subthrust sheet and the Cretaceous.

"Once we have completed the final production test at Royston-1, we intend to work to formulate a long-term development plan, which is anticipated to include a number of wells and associated facilities."

Touchstone said it has now suspended the second test interval and is moving uphole to the third production test which will complete the upper most portion of the overthrust sheet.

"We have redesigned the third test in anticipation of a liquids test and will be using an idealised 2 7/8-inch tubing string to provide the opportunity to conduct a longer-term production test.

"We have also designed the programme such that, if the final test is successful, the test two and test three intervals can be combined to complete a long-term production test from the entire overthrust sheet. During testing, oil volumes are being trucked to one of our existing sales facilities."

It said it envisions two additional wells being drilled from the existing Royston surface location, subject to the required approvals.