South Africa’s Renergen said it has found more gas at its Victoria project, further underpinning its LNG and helium development.
The firm said in a statement on Thursday it found gas at well MDR1, 300 meters north of its producing MDR5 well.
Both wells are part of its Virginia gas project in South Africa’s Free State province that will feed the small-scale LNG plant, mainly for truck fuel.
This also marks the second gas find for the producer in a week. Renergen said the well is now producing gas at an estimated 86,000 standard cubic feet per day.
“MDR1 is another important well for us for two reasons. The most obvious reason is that it is less than 600 meters from the new plant, so it will tie in quickly and easily,” Renergen chief executive Stefano Marani, said.
“The second reason this is important is that we now have an accumulating body of evidence to suggest that we can significantly reduce spacing between wells without influencing individual well production, which, in turn, means a higher well density in the prevailing production scenario,” he said.
The new well will feed the first phase of Renergen’s LNG and helium production project.
To remind, a unit of Italian contractor Saipem said in January it won a front-end engineering and design contract for the second phase of Renergen’s project.
Renergen aims to launch the first production phase of the Victoria project with initial volumes of around 350kg of helium and 2,500GJ of LNG later this year.
Moreover, the second phase would significantly boost LNG volumes for distribution in South Africa while helium would go for exports, Renergen says.