Lukoil, NewAge farm into Bowleven’s Cameroon offshore block

Bowleven, an Africa focused oil and gas exploration group, has delivered its strategic intent to sell part of its interest in the Etinde Permit, offshore Cameroon, by entering into a conditional agreement with Lukoil and NewAge.

Bowleven will reduce its interest in the Etinde permit from 75% to 25% and receive aggregate consideration of approximately $250 million comprising a $170 million cash payment at completion; a $40 million staged deferred cash payment due at Etinde development project FID and on completion of appraisal drilling; and a $40 million (net) carry for two appraisal wells.

Lukoil will acquire a 37.5% interest and NewAge will acquire an additional 12.5% interest in the Etinde Permit to increase its group holding from 25% to 37.5%. Camop, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NewAge, will become operator of the Etinde Permit following completion, allowing Bowleven to focus on its proven exploration skillset.

Bowleven will retain a 25% interest in the Etinde Permit, ensuring continued exposure to the considerable resource and future development potential of the acreage.

Providing useful resources, articles and writings on crude oil, other petroleum products, energy and gas. By Giftelyon Multi-Sevices Int'l Ltd and services, UK, online.

Sunbird-1 oil zone verified offshore Kenya

Pancontinental Oil and Gas reported it has verified that the recently completed Sunbird-1 well off the southern Kenyan coast has intersected an oil column the first ever oil discovered off the East African coast.

The gross oil column is assessed to be 14 m thick beneath a gross gas column of 29.6 m in a reefal limestone reservoir in the Sunbird Miocene Pinnacle Reef in area L10A. The corresponding net values are 9.2 m for the oil zone and 28.3 m for the gas zone. The Sunbird Reef is an ancient Miocene pinnacle reef buried beneath approximately 900 m of younger sediment.

Pancontinental believes the results are highly significant because they are the first proof of the presence a prospective oil system in the Lamu Basin offshore Kenya. The oil and gas have been geochemically typed in detail and the prospective source rocks have been dated and characterised for use in future exploration.

Analysis of the Sunbird results has been complicated by the loss of drilling mud, seawater and remedial cement pumped into the limestone reservoir during drilling operations.

Pancontinental has an 18.75% interest in the well and block L10A. Pancontinental has three extensive exploration areas in this highly prospective Basin covering a total area of approximately 15,000 sq km, including L10A. The detailed oil and gas geochemical data, which are confidential to the L10A Joint Venture partners, give the age and type of the oil source rocks, as well as other crucial data that Pancontinental believes places the L10A Joint Venture in a leading position to find commercial oil offshore Kenya.

The Operator of the Block L10A Petroleum Sharing Contract, BG Group, is continuing to analyse the well data and will recommend a future exploration programme using the well results.

The top of the Sunbird Miocene Pinnacle Reef was reached at 1,583.7 m sub-sea. The water depth is 723 m. Below the upper oil and gas zone, indications of low Wet Gas saturation were seen, although these are not considered to be volumetrically significant. The age and depositional environment of the oil source rocks have been determined by geochemical analysis, and remain commercially confidential to the L10A Joint Venture.

The presence of oil is supported by geochemical analysis of MDT samples, the pressure gradient of MDT samples, numerical modelling of the invasion of the oil zone and also fluorescence attributable to oil in samples. The reservoir zone was heavily flushed during well control operations, making determination of the oil and gas zones difficult.

Porosity and permeability of the hydrocarbon zone were favourable overall, and were very high in parts of the reservoir as evidenced by the loss of a large volume of drilling fluid.

L10A Consortium:

The Kenya L10A consortium consists of: BG Group (Operator) 50.00%, PTTEP 31.25% & Pancontinental 18.75%.

Pancontinental increases interest in L10B. Pancontinental advises that it has increased its interest in licence L10B, immediately to the south of L10A. The increase in interest is subject to the completion of documentation; however Ministerial approval has already been given.

The Kenya L10B consortium now consists of : BG Group (Operator) 75.00% & Pancontinental 25.00%.

Providing useful resources, articles and writings on crude oil, other petroleum products, energy and gas. By Giftelyon Multi-Sevices Int'l Ltd and services, UK, online.

Circle Oil spuds exploration well offshore Tunisia

Circle Oil has started drilling the EMD-1 well, on the offshore Mahdia Permit, using the drillship PetroSaudi Discoverer.

The well is located within the vicinity of many producing fields, including the Tazerka, Birsa, Oudna, and Halk El Menzel oil fields, and the Maamoura gas field. The well is planned to test the play potential of the El Mediouni prospect, including the primary Birsa Sands target and the secondary fractured carbonates of the Ketatna Formation.

The Birsa Sands alone have a management pre-drill P50 estimate of 185 MMbo STOOIP. The primary target, the Birsa Sands, is expected at 1,260 m MD with the Ketatna Carbonates at 1,460 m MD. The management view on the recoverable prospective resources estimate for the El Medouini prospect is 46 MMbo for the Birsa Sands objective alone. This is substantially larger than the recoverable commercial threshold for the area which stands at approximately 10 MMbo.

Depending on progress rates the well is expected to take approximately 5-7 weeks to drill. Providing useful resources, articles and writings on crude oil, other petroleum products, energy and gas. By Giftelyon Multi-Sevices Int'l Ltd and services, UK, online.