YPFB drills Villamontes-X7 well to evaluate gas and condensate potential

Machine translation was used to publish the following YPFB release

Santa Cruz, July 24, 2024 (AN-YPFB).- Yacimientos Petrolófilos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) began drilling the Villamontes-X7 (VMT-X7) exploratory well this Tuesday, with the purpose of searching for gas and condensate, reported the president of the state oil company, Armin Dorgathen Tapia.

“A mandate of our president Arce is exploration. According to schedule, we have begun drilling operations for the VMT-X7 well, once the routine maintenance work on the equipment was completed,” said Dorgathen Tapia.

The Villamontes-X7 well aims to reach a depth of 4,360 meters in order to evaluate and investigate the Chorro and Tupambi formations of the Carboniferous system, with the perspective of expanding the exploratory frontier in Bolivia. The estimated potential resources in both formations are encouraging and an initial flow of 27 million cubic feet per day (MMcfd) is expected.

“The main activities to be carried out will be drilling, electrical logging, formation testing, among other services, according to the geological drilling proposal,” indicated Fernando Arteaga Pinto, national manager of Exploration and Exploitation of YPFB.

As operator of this exploratory project, YPFB Headquarters, through its National Exploration and Exploitation Management, invests approximately Bs 201.9 million.

In drilling this well, the YPFB-02 equipment is used, whose power is 2000 HP (horsepower).

The VMT-X7 exploratory project is located in the Villamontes Area, municipality of Villa Montes, belonging to the Autonomous Region of Gran Chaco of the Tarija department at a distance of 457 kilometers from the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

The activities are part of the strategic objectives of YPFB and the Upstream Reactivation Plan (PRU) that seeks to replenish and increase hydrocarbon reserves in the medium and long term.