VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 26, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Portrush Petroleum Corporation (TSX-V:PSH) (OTCBB:PRRPF) (http://www.portrushpetroleum.com) has been advised that the operator, the McAlester Fuel Company ("McAlester"), has signed a contract with H&G Oilfield Services to build the location for the Scanio/Shelton Number 6 well on the Mission River project in Texas. H&G Oilfield Services is based in Corpus Christi and they anticipate the work will get underway immediately and take less than a week to complete. The work will include preparing the location and resurfacing the road on the property.
The drilling contractor anticipates spudding the well on November 15th and has allocated 30 days from spud date to rig release for the 10,000 foot test which will require setting intermediate casing just above 8,000 feet before the formation pressure starts to rise.
The Mission River lease is operated by McAlester and is located at the south end of the town of Refugio, Refugio County, Texas. The field has multiple pays at depths ranging from 2,000 to 8,500 feet. Portrush has a 10% working interest in the field. To date six wells have been drilled to approximately 6,500 feet and all six have been placed on production.
Wesley Franklin, consulting geologist for McAlester and recently appointed to the board of Portrush stated, "The operator is interested in an interval from 8,000 to 8,500 feet because of production from 3 wells in the southwestern part of our lease. A 1937 Sunray well produced 1 BCF of gas from a single pay sand at approximately 8,300 feet. The un-fraced initial production was 12 MMCF/D and 240 BOPD. In addition, slightly shallower sands appear to have been pay from the well log. In 1963, Ginther Warren drilled two producers from the same approximate interval in different fault blocks, each initially producing at rates of 8 MMC/D, and again without any stimulation. They, too, failed to produce other pay sands, electing instead to plug back and re-complete to shallow G-sand reservoirs. These two wells produced 140 MMCF and 156 MMCF."
Mr. Franklin continued, "Based on the previously drilled deep producers, we anticipate multiple pays in the 8,100 to 8,500 lower Vicksburg. These zones will require fracing, and it is anticipated the zones to produce at 5 MMCF/D or greater, and recover 3 to 6 BCF. The deeper interval from 9,000 to 10,000 feet is a bit of a guess, and we have to use analogs from other producing areas in Jackson and Wharton counties, up the Texas coast, closer to Houston. Single Yegua sands typically produce 1 to 2 BCF per sand, but the very best reservoirs produce from 10 to 30 BCF, so this is very attractive exploration. The potential in the deeper Yegua formation below 9,000 feet is an exploration surprise that could establish a whole new play in the part of south Texas."
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