Touchstone Well Test in Trinidad and Tobago Strikes Oil

Touchstone Exploration Inc. said Monday it had found "non-commercial rates" of light petroleum in the least prospective part of the Royston-1X well in Trinidad and Tobago, which it said was an encouraging result.

The first of planned five production tests in the sidetrack well in the onshore Ortoire block involved depths of 11,102-11,168 feet in the subthrust sheet of the Herrera Formation, the Canadian company said in a press release. Oil did not come up to the surface, Touchstone said.

"Swabbed volumes were analyzed by a third party confirming 40 degrees API gravity formation crude oil, representing the deepest oil encountered on the Ortoire block to date", it added. "This section of the formation appears to be a low permeability reservoir, and further testing will not be conducted".

However, Touchstone will pursue potentially four more tests with a collective target of 384 gross feet, the Toronto- and London-listed company said.

"We are encouraged that the initial test of the Royston-1X well successfully confirmed the presence of light oil in the subthrust sheet, validating our internal wireline log analysis", Touchstone president and chief executive Paul Baay said in the announcement. "The test results and crude oil analysis have been crucial to establish the extent of the hydrocarbon column penetrated by the wellbore, providing valuable baseline information for evaluating the log data and defining future testing intervals".

Touchstone announced February 6 it had started drilling operations for the Royston-1X well, where it has an 80 percent working interest. The host country's state-owned Heritage Petroleum Co. Ltd. holds the remaining 20 percent.

In its earnings report for 2022 published March 24 Touchstone said: "We safely reached budgeted total depth of our Royston-1X sidetrack well on the Ortoire block on February 24, 2023. The well has been cased, and we expect to commence production testing in late March 2023".

The production tests are expected to take months, with the second anticipated to start late May, according to Monday's update.

Royston-1X reenters the Royston-1 exploration well, which had already encountered  light, sweet crude oil in the overthrust and intermediate sheets since drilling started 2021, Touchstone said in the February 6 release.

"The Royston-1 well drilled in 2021 showed tremendous potential, flowing significant volumes of 33-degree API oil from both the overthrust and intermediate sheets; however, mechanical challenges prevented meaningful production from the well", the Touchstone boss said in the update February 6.

"The challenges encountered at Royston-1 and the lessons learned have helped us to design a drilling plan to optimally evaluate the Herrera Formation".

Touchstone already has operational business in Trinidad and Tobago. Last year it delivered "the first onshore natural gas field to come onstream in Trinidad in 20 years" from the Coho facility, its March 24 performance report for last year stated.

It also said February 27 it was on track to complete its Cascadura facility by end-June. The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd. had told Touchstone it expects the first gas delivery from the facility by June 30, Touchstone said in a release.

In January Touchstone said its local subsidiary Primera Oil and Gas Ltd. has entered into an assets exchange deal with Lease Operators Ltd. "Pursuant to the Agreement, we have agreed to transfer our Fyzabad, San Francique and Barrackpore blocks, which currently produce aggregate crude oil volumes of approximately 130 barrels per day ('bbls/d'), in exchange for the Rio Claro, Balata East and Balata East Deep Horizons ('Balata Deep') blocks, which offset our Ortoire block and currently produce aggregate crude oil volumes of approximately 35 bbls/d", it announced January 9.

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