Drilling manager appointed
This morning our 2021 Catalyst Hunter Pick Of The Year Grand Gulf Energy (ASX: GGE) brought on to the team Todd Gentles as its drilling manager for the upcoming Jesse-2 well.
Todd joins Doug Frederik, who led the team to a helium discovery at the Jesse-1 well.
Todd brings over 40 years of experience including 15 years at the neighbouring Doe Canyon Helium field, which is the second largest producing North American helium discovery in over 60 years.
Todd and Doug combined have over 80 years of experience and have been a part of teams where over nine drill-rigs and 30 workover rigs were managed with annual exploration budgets of up to US$300M + OPEX budgets of US$200M.
We are hoping the calibre of people GGE will have on-site managing the drill program is enough for the company to pull off a successful drilling program.
Drilling of the Jesse-2 well is expected to commence before the end of this quarter.
The Jesse-2 well will follow up GGE’s discovery well (Jesse-1), which hit a proven helium structure with a grade up to ~1%.
The ultimate aim for Jesse-2 will be to see the company produce a commercially viable flow rate that warrants putting GGE’s helium discovery into production.
Here is what we know about GGE’s helium project now:
- ✅ A proven helium structure: A >61m gross gas column (with ~31m of independently audited net pay)
- ✅ Commercial helium grades: Helium grades of up to 1% returned to surface (higher than our 0.4% expectation)
For GGE to deliver a commercial helium project, it needs:
- 🔄 Commercially viable flow rate: GGE’s Jesse-2 well is being drilled with this goal in mind.
