Vintage Energy provides positive news for struggling east coast energy market
With reports escalating over concerns that the east coast of Australia is facing major power issues due to potential gas shortages, news that Vintage Energy (ASX: VEN) is fast-tracking work at its Cooper Basin interests couldn’t be more timely.
Created to help supply an energy-needy east coast market, Vintage has already successfully brought the Vali project in licence ATP 2021 on stream and is on target to add the Odin gas field to the mix within weeks.
Vintage, a 50% interest-holder and operator of the ATP 2021 and PRL 211 joint venture permits in central Australia, has confirmed that work to bring the Odin field on stream is on schedule to commence this month.
Metgasco (ASX: MEL) owns 25%, with Bridgeport (Cooper Basin) Pty Ltd owning the remaining 25%.
Accelerating Odin connection
The company reported to the ASX that activity at Odin in permit PRL 211 has been focussed on completing the final stages of the accelerated connection of the field to the Vali-Beckler pipeline allowing production from Odin to commence later this month.
Vintage said commissioning activities for the Odin are imminent, with the final pieces of equipment due to be transported to site over the next few days.
Under a gas sales agreement, Odin gas is contracted to supply Pelican Point Power (a joint venture between ENGIE Australia and New Zealand) (72%) and Mitsui & Co Ltd (28%), from start-up to December 2024.
The Odin gas field was discovered by the PRL 211 joint venture in 2021. Odin-1 confirmed gas pay in the Toolachee, Epsilon and Patchawarra formations and delivered a stable gas flow rate of 6.5 million standard cubic feet per day from the Epsilon and Toolachee formations.
The well was completed as a Toolachee and Epsilon gas producer as part of the Vali well completion campaign conducted in July – August 2022.
The field has independently certified Contingent Resources (2C) of 40 petajoules.
Vali upgrades progressing
Elsewhere, work to improve flow levels from sections of the Vali gas field is also making strong progress, with production from the Vali-2 well set to resume in coming days.
The Vintage-led Vali joint venture has been investigating a number of methods to help establish more stable gas production rates from the Vali-2 and Vali-3 wells.
The work program was initially delayed due to issues surrounding the removal of fluid in the well bores.
Vintage revealed that operations at Vali-2 have been completed and important memory production log tool (MPLT) data acquired during the work over program has been submitted for processing and interpretation.
Vali-3 program ongoing
Meanwhile, the JV’s plans to resume production from Vali-3 following completion of swabbing operations and acquisition of data on zonal water and gas production using MPLT is still ongoing.
The work over will require further swabbing to enable resumption of gas production, with additional equipment now being deployed to site.
Vintage says it expects the swabbing operations to remove fluid from the well bore will resume in the coming days.
Importantly, the resumption of production will then enable MPLT data acquisition at Vali-3, with processing and interpretation of the data expected to take a number of weeks to complete.
Vali-1 still supplying AGL
Notably, the Vali field continues to supply gas to AGL (ASX: AGL) pursuant to a long-term contract announced in March 2022.
Vintage reported that the Vali-1 well continues to perform in line with expectations.
The Vali gas sales contract provides for the supply of an estimated 9 to 16 petajoules by the joint venture from start-up to December 2026 within the framework of two supply tranches.
AGL prepaid $15 million to the joint venture in June 2022 as an advance payment to be recouped over the life of the contract.