Jack-up rig goes back to previous Black Sea well, as earthquakes delay delivery of tools

Canada’s oil and gas player Trillion Energy has moved back to the previous well in its 2022 – 2023 drilling campaign on a natural gas field in the Black Sea off Türkiye to finish drilling it to the total depth, as earthquakes impacted the delivery of perforation tools for the other well the firm planned to bring into production.

Following the arrival of the Uranus jack-up rig – hired in May 2022 – at the Akçakoca platform, Trillion spudded in September 2022 its first well, South Akçakoca-2, in the drilling campaign on the SASB natural gas field. After identifying numerous potential gas zones on logging, the flow test results for the well were revealed in November 2022.

Afterwards, the Canadian player started the recompletion work on the second well – Akçakoca-3 – in its drilling programme for the shallow-water conventional gas field. Once the well came on stream, the company announced the well’s flow test results.

In addition, the Uranus rig was repositioned to drill the firm’s third and fourth wells in its SASB development programme and Trillion explained that the West Akçakoca-1 and Guluc-2 wells would be spudded a few weeks apart and completed in sequence.

Come December 2022, the company spudded the Guluc-2 well, after completing the West Akçakoca-1 17 ½” diameter section to 1,008 metres depth. After the Guluc-2 well reached 3,910 metres total measured depth (TMD) and true vertical debt (TVD) of 1,623 metres, completion and flow testing was anticipated over the following weekend.

In an update on Tuesday, 14 February 2023, Trillion said that perforation and flow testing for the Guluc-2 well was initially anticipated to take place last week. However, completion has been temporarily delayed while the firm awaits the delivery of well tools to allow the perforation guns to be properly conveyed and positioned into the well.

The Canadian player explains that shipping issues due to the massive earthquakes, which hit Türkiye and Syria, caused delays in receiving certain tools. The firm is now expecting to receive the tools for perforations of the Guluc-2 well later this week. 

According to the company, the Uranus rig has been skidded to the West Akçakoca-1 well to avoid the rig standing idle waiting for tools. With 1,008 metres of surface hole previously drilled late in 2022, this well will now be drilled to TD. Once drilling at West Akçakoca-1 is complete, both wells will be perforated for production.

Upon the completion of the wells at the Akçakoca platform, the Uranus rig will move to the East Ayazli tripod at the SASB field. Trillion Energy plans to add three sidetrack wells to the development programme for the SASB gas field, increasing the total number of wells for this Black Sea drilling campaign from 17 to 20.