Geosciences Students Visit Little Cheniere Field Well Site

On August 8th, two of our Geosciences graduate students, Ujjwal Kharel and Hamza Rehman, had an amazing opportunity to visit an exploration well in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. Ujjwal and Hamza are recipients of the Enhancing Excellence in Subsurface Geology Non-Endowed Scholarship which is funded by Miami Alternatives, LLC, on behalf of the Deering Family. This was the first time that either of these students had the opportunity to visit a drill rig. Their faculty mentor, Mr. Bill Finley, accompanied them on their visit to the well site.

The well they visited, which is located southeast of Grand Lake in the Little Cheniere Field, is under operation by High Bar Operating, LLC. The well is a directional well, drilled to a TVD of 10,200 feet and is targeting the Siph D Sand Formation of lower Miocene age.

Ujjwal and Hamza summarized their visit as follows. "Upon arrival, we were warmly welcomed by Mr. Chase, the site engineer, and Mr. Ansley, the site geologist, who walked us through the operations and shared valuable insights about the project. The highlight of the visit was getting to observe the well logging process firsthand. The crew was running a triple combo tool, which measures gamma ray, neutron/density porosity, resistivity, and spontaneous potential logs simultaneously. Watching how the tool was lowered into the borehole, how the logs were calibrated, and how different lithologies like sand and shale appear on the logs gave us a much clearer picture of how subsurface data is collected and interpreted. We even got a glimpse of how hydrocarbons can show up in the log responses. Overall, this one-day field trip gave us a deeper appreciation of the technical and operational aspects of hydrocarbon exploration."

The College of Sciences and the School of Geosciences are extremely grateful to Miami Alternatives, LLC, and the Deering Family for their support and the rewarding impact of this partnership on our students.