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37 min ago 2 min read
Australian helium exploration company Noble Helium has pushed back its planned helium drilling campaign at the Kinambo prospect, part of the North Rukwa project in Tanzania, with the Kinambo-1 well now expected to spud in early October.
The campaign is running roughly three months behind , with mobilisation previously set for June and drilling expected to start in early July.
The company has now instructed BoreXpert to mobilise a rig from Kenya to the Kinambo site, with arrival expected in the last week of September.
The rig is contracted for the two confirmed wells, Kinambo 1 and Kinambo 2, or Kinambo B and Kinambo K, with an option to drill a further two contingent wells.
Kinambo-1 drilling is estimated to take around 24 days to reach its planned vertical depth of 1750m. This will be followed by downhole logging operations.
The Kinambo drilling campaign also aims to assess the potential of the western margin’s prospective helium volumes.
On a best-case basis, Noble Helium estimates the western margin’s prospective helium volumes at 118 billion cubic feet (bcf), rising to 225.5 bcf on a mean-case basis.
Global technical services provider SLB has been contracted for the logging, key sampling, and data collection for the Kinambo drilling campaign to validate the company’s potential helium volumes.
Dennis Donald, Executive Chairman of Noble Helium, said, “The deeper planned depths for Kinambo 1 and Kinambo 2 combined with the appointment of SLB…gives us [a]…chance of extrapolating results across to the much larger eastern margin.”
The company is targeting drilling on the eastern margin in 2027, with results from the Kinambo wells expected to help inform that future exploration.
