Offshore staff
CALGARY, Canada– The first well drilled offshore Liberia has proven a disappointment to operator ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Liberia Ltd. and partner Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd. (COPL), showing no hydrocarbons.
ExxonMobil reached final total depth on Dec. 17 after beginning operations on Nov. 21 with the Seadrill drillshipWest Saturn, COPL said.
The Mersurado-1 deepwater exploration well is located about 50 mi (80 km) off Liberia on block LB-13 in around 2,500 m (8,202 ft) of water.
The well, targeting oil in a sequence of Late Cretaceous Santonian aged sands, intersected 145 m (475 ft) of net sand of which 118 m (387 ft) was deemed to be reservoir quality, COPL said. However, no hydrocarbons were indicated by the logging while drilling operations performed across the targeted intervals. As such, Exxon informed its partner that no further logging operations will be conducted and the well will be P&A’d.
COPL CEO Arthur Millholland said: “We are naturally disappointed by the lack of hydrocarbons in the targeted reservoir sands in the Mersurado-1 well. The targeted Santonian sand sequence and thickness intersected was in accordance with our seismic interpretation. The lack of hydrocarbons at this location where our seismic data presented attributes indicative of hydrocarbons will cause us to do additional work on the 3D seismic over the block, and reevaluate the other leads we have mapped on LB-13.”
Canadian Overseas Petroleum (Bermuda) Ltd. holds a 17% interest inblock LB-13.
Millholland continued by commenting on some of COPL’s future plans: “The company holds an attractive oil appraisal and development projectoffshore Nigeria on OPL 226. Appraisal drilling operations are planned to commence in late 2017. These operations will continue to add value to the company.”
12/19/2016
