Albany 1 Underway:

Good to hear that Albany 1 has spudded with the well programmed to take 25 days to reach full depth to the bottom of the targeted sandstone structure in the ‘deeps’.

The well design looks sensible in that once the sandstone is reached at approx. 2,450 meters the hole being drilled through the sandstone formation (approx. 325 meters) will be undertaken using nitrogen to avoid interrupting the porosity in the sandstone at well bore edge which could easily occur had mud been used as a lubrication to full depth.

With the under-reaming at Mahalo being such a success resulting in a massive increase in gas flow having removed the drilling fines previously plugging the coal – anything to ensure that we have the best chance of keeping the hole clean preserving the porosity of the sandstone at depth at Albany 1 has to make sense.

The only point about which I remain unclear is the approximate location of the three gas intervals encountered in the Carmichael 1 Well drilled in 1995. Certainly one of those intervals has to be from the sandstone deeps which is the target formation for Albany 1 – but it would be interesting to learn the location of the other two gas intervals that were encountered at that time.

If everything goes according to plan and meaningful gas is encountered from the sandstone deeps – we’ll have ‘two horses in the race’.

Exciting times for sure with all looking good to me.