courtesy SUNCOR

Oslo-listed Canadian oil-sands player, Petrobank, has fired up a third well-pair at its Whitesands project, where the “wells” have long been heated in anticipation of this summer’s firing.

Ignition in the first two wells brought 2,000 barrels per day to the “surface” using the company’s tradmark THAI heavy oil recovery process. Half the well stream was oil.

Being oil sands, much sand was also in the “wellstream”, leading to the fitting of sand-catching equipment which worked “easily”.

The Calgar-based Petrobank is expanding at Whitesands, and later this year three horizontal “well-pairs” will be drilled horizontally to 700 metres and then surrounded by a “catalyst”. “Lessons learned” will also go into the design of a first 10,000-barrel-per-day project, for which a development plan will be submitted to regulators later in 2007.

Petrobank business WHITESANDS Insitu Ltd owns 39,680 acres of oil sands leases with an estimated 2.6 billion barrels of gross bitumen-in-place.