15 November 2012, Sweetcrude, Johanesburg – AUSTRALIA’s Kinetiko Energy said exploration drilling on the southern licence of its Amersfoort project in South Africa indicated the potential for greater-than-expected gas volumes.
The company said drilling on the Volksrust licence (the southern and largest of the two blocks making up the Amersfoort project) yielded about three metres of coal from hole KV-05 – the strongest initial core sample to date at the licence.
Kinetiko said this indicated the potential for high gas prospectivity in the southern tenement. In addition, the gas zones were occurring deeper in the core holes (with the current average hole depth being about 150 metres deeper than the northern block), which could mean greater gas volumes than originally assessed.
The Volksrust concession is also closer to pipelines than the northern Amersfoort block.
The company has completed two other core holes and two more are nearly complete – all of which had encouraging gas encounters from core samples or wire line responses.
The current exploration drilling programme is expected to continue through to the middle of next year, with a total of eight wells planned for the Volksrust licence, the company said.