Ivanhoe Energy announces deep-gas well location in San Joaquin Basin

David Martin, Chairman of Ivanhoe Energy, announced initial details of the company's first deep-gas exploration well in California's southern San Joaquin Valley.
The well, to be known as Ivanhoe Northeast Lost Hills No.1, will be drilled in Ivanhoe's block in Kern County, in T25S, R20E. Exact location co-ordinates will be announced following regulatory approval. Ivanhoe and its partners will drill the well to a total depth of approximately 20,000 feet. Ivanhoe will have a minimum working of interest of 47 %, relative to its principal joint-venture partner, which is the largest oil producer in California and is jointly owned by two of the world's largest integrated oil companies. The drilling schedule and the final working interests assigned to all of the joint-venture partners will be established and announced shortly.
The Ivanhoe well will be drilled approximately five miles north-west of the Berkley consortium's East Lost Hills No.1 discovery well, which was completed to a depth of 19,700feet and flowed natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons at what were reported to be "highly commercial" rates during testing. The Berkley well is scheduled to begin production in December at a planned rate of 15 mm cfpd.
The Berkley consortium announced that its well demonstrated the presence of a significant hydrocarbon column of more than 2,750 feet from what it described as a "high pressure, high quality reservoir with enormous deliverability". The Ivanhoe well will be 3.5 miles north-west of the Berkley East Lost Hills No.2 deep well, which spudded as part of the Berkley consortium's plans to drill two additional East Lost Hills wells this summer and to redrill a third well.

Mr. Martin said Ivanhoe has completed a state-of-the-art seismic survey of the area to be targeted by the Ivanhoe Northeast Lost Hills No.1 well. "With the use of additional data acquired by previous exploration initiatives by major oil companies, we have mapped a very significant geologic structure at Northeast Lost Hills. This deep-gas discovery has the potential to be the largest onshore gas discovery in the United States in the last several years, and is writing a new chapter in the 100-year-old energy story in the San Joaquin Basin." The Ivanhoe Northeast Lost Hills No.1 well will be drilled on a 6,000-acre exploration block, which Ivanhoe and its partners have acquired in the vicinity of the Lost Hills oilfield. In addition to its working interests, Ivanhoe holds overriding royalty interests ranging from 1.37 % to 6.88 % on future production from leases in the prospect area.
Ivanhoe and its principal partner in California have other deep prospects on the western side of the San Joaquin Basin that will be drilled in the coming months. Ivanhoe currently has oil and gas exploration interests covering a total of more than 300,000 acres in the southern San Joaquin Basin.

Ivanhoe Energy is a Canadian oil and natural gas exploration and development company. Ivanhoe's principal current projects are in California, Texas and China. In China, the company is heading a development program of new and reworked wells to enhance oil recoveries on 22,400 acres on the Dagang field, in partnership with China National Petroleum Corporation and Nippon Oil Exploration of Japan.
Ivanhoe recently secured a license to use Syntroleum Corporation's proprietary, gas-to-liquids process in commercial scale plants to convert natural gas into ultra-clean diesel and other fuels.