Rally Energy’s Doug Brown,
Ian McMurtrie, Abby Badwi,
and Doug Urch.
plans to initiate steam flooding at Issaran
to access remaining recoverable reserves.
“Seventy-five to eighty per cent of
ultimate recovery from this field is
going to come from a thermal
response,” Brown says.
Rally currently has two thermal pilot
projects underway in two horizons—the
Upper and Lower Dolomite.
“We are now in the process of going
into an expanded pilot project because
we are very happy with the results we
have seen to date,” McMurtrie explains.
“By 2008, we will have a large-scale
operation where we are drilling large concentrations in these zones.”
All of the oil produced from the
Issaran field is sold to the Egyptian
General Petroleum Company, which is
wholly owned by the Arab Republic of
Egypt. Production is trucked to three terminals where it is blended with lighter
hydrocarbons, and then the majority of it
is shipped for use in India. Working with
government at this level is not done in
Canada, but Rally executives say the formula is working.
“They are our partners,” says Doug
Urch, Rally’s chief financial officer and
vice-president of finance. “They have to
be happy with the steps and processes
we are taking. We are working together
to develop these assets.”
The next step for Rally, beyond commercializing thermal operations, is to look
into improving the transportability of the
product, Brown says.
“There are scaleable upgrading technologies emerging that we are keeping
our eyes on that would fit our stabilized
production rates.”
He explains the two keys to profitable
unconventional oil production are transportation and differential capture. The
product that comes from Issaran is marketed as Ras Gharib blend, which captures about 61 per cent of the price of
Brent. Brown says it has recently brought
in as much as $42 per barrel.
“That’s unbelievable for road tar.”
Deborah Jaremko | SR
For more information about unconventional
oil around the world, see the September
issue of Oilweek Magazine.
