On Tuesday, October 14, 2008, Petromin (PTR) announced that TerraWest Energy Corp (TWE) had finalized its contractual arrangements with Xinjiang Geologic Engineering Co. Ltd. to commence drilling of two wide diameter wells (1500m and 800m) on TWE’s land in Liuhuanggou area of Xinjiang province, P.R. China.  This will be a 45 day drilling program. 

The 1500m well offsets a coal coring drillhole and gas desorption location completed in 2006.  It is also designed to test for Jurassic-aged coal at 1100m.  The 800m offsets another coal coring drillhole and gas desorption location and is also designed to be drilled and cased to the top of the J2x coal and then to run open hole permeability and production flow tests of the 40m plus J2x coal seams. 

Four days after finalizing its contractual arrangements, TWE spudded the 800m well.  The commencement of the drill program was celebrated with an opening ceremony. PTR’s on-site head engineer, Ryan Adams was given the ceremonial honour of pulling the switch to start the drilling and the well was officially spudded at 11:08am.  The opening ceremony ended with fireworks and other traditional Chinese business ceremonies.