Progress continues apace at Dempsey, says Empyrean

Oil and gas development company Empyrean Energy announced on Thursday that it has been informed by Sacgasco, the operator of the Dempsey 1-15 well in the Sacramento Basin, onshore California, that the Dempsey 1-15 well was currently drilling ahead in 8 1/2" vertical hole.

The AIM-traded firm said that, since the last update, mud logs had indicated additional zones of significant gas shows.

It said those had occurred even though the drilling mud weight had been increased to control the levels of background gas for safe drilling.

Shareholders and investors were advised by the board that the significance of the shows would become more apparent when the next wireline logs were run to “more fully evaluate” the intersected gas shows and reservoirs.

That was planned after reaching the proposed total drilling depth of approximately 3,200 metres.

“Further gas shows are encouraging,” said Empyrean CEO Tom Kelly.

“We will be better able to correlate these zones with the pre-drill prognosis and seismic interpretation once we have reached total depth and run electric logs.”

The Dempsey 1-15 well was currently drilling ahead below 2,440 m to the “highly under-explored” deeper targeted reservoirs in the approximately 750 m of remaining section to be drilled, the board said.

It said Dempsey was drilling the “largest known, yet undrilled, mapped structural closure” in the northeastern part of the prolific Sacramento Gas Basin, and was interpreted to be optimally located to trap gas migrating out of gas generating areas located to the west and south.