Ashvaz Project
The Ashvaz project consists of the Ashvaz and adjoining East Mailisu and West Mailisu licence areas. There is good potential to commence commercial production from relatively shallow limestone reservoirs found within the Ashvaz lease areas.
To this day, oil continues to naturally seep from limestone reservoirs into the Mailisu River and from early mine workings and close-spaced diamond core holes drilled between 1939 and 1966. It has been reported that over 500,000bbls of oil was collected as part of the mining operations and still the oil continues to flow.
Core from reservoir Vb – Ashvaz Oil seep at river cutting - Ashvaz
Ashvaz currently has one producing oil well with good potential for more from the shallow (Paleogene age) reservoir beds, as well as deeper (Jurassic and Cretaceous age) targets.
The Ashvaz oilfield lies directly up-dip of the Mailisu IV, Mailisu III and Izbaskent oilfields. These fields produce from Paleogene reservoirs which are oil bearing within the Ashvaz exploration licence. The Mailisu and Izbaskent fields, which were discovered between 1948 and 1972, contained total reserves of 97.5 million barrels (MMbbl) of oil, 45.5 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of associated gas and 323.7Bcf of non-associated gas (all figures in terms of ultimate recovery USGS, 1994) prior to production.
The Mailisu-Izbaskent fields occur over anticlinal structures where oil accumulations occur within Paleogene fossiliferous and fractured limestones above the oil-water contact. The Ashvaz oil field is a monoclinal structure although some components of fault trapping are likely to influence the structure.
The Ashvaz field potentially has three reservoir zones of Paleogene age, beds (denoted as V, VIIa and VIIb), each of which are 7 to 15m thick, with porosity ranging between 3-30%. The porosity is primarily moldic and the reservoir is formed whent the shell fragment voids are connected. The Ashvaz field crude oil tested to date ranges from 21.47 degrees API to 30.21 degrees API, with the refinery sample yielding 28.31 degrees API.