Stone discovers oil in deepwater Cardona South well

Stone Energy Corp., Lafayette, La., encountered more than 275 ft of net oil pay in three separate sections of the deepwater Cardona South well on Mississippi Canyon Block 29 in the Gulf of Mexico.

Stone said the Cardona South success extends the productive zone of the MC Block 29 TB-9 well to the adjacent fault block to the south and sets up a potential second and third well in the fault block.

The company plans to flow the Cardona South well along with the Cardona discovery to the Stone-owned and operated Pompano platform contracted from Ensco PLC in April 2013 (OGJ Online, Apr. 9, 2013).

“The success of the Cardona South well and the previously announced Cardona well allows us to move forward with our accelerated development program,” said David H. Welch, Stone chairman, president, and chief executive officer.

“We expect to begin production early in 2015, less than 1 year after spudding the first Cardona well, and we expect volumes from these two wells to more than double our deepwater oil production. These two successful wells, combined with the Amethyst and Tomcat discoveries in February, have provided a great start to our 2014 exploration and development drilling program,” Welch said.

Production casing has been set and cemented in the Cardona South well and subsea tree equipment will be put in place. The rig will then move back to the original Cardona well to commence completion operations before returning to complete the Cardona South well.

The original Cardona well was previously estimated to have 84 ft of net oil pay, but Stone indicated that further evaluation has brought the estimated net oil pay to 96 ft (OGJ Online, Feb. 25, 2014).

Stone operates and owns the Cardona South well with 65% interest, which was acquired from BP PLC in 2011 (OGJ Online, Nov. 21, 2011).