Mexican regulator signs off Zama development plan, Harbour expects to resume drilling offshore Indonesia

Offshore staff

LONDON – Mexico’s regulator has approved the unitized development plan for the offshore Zama oil field, according to partner Harbour Energy.

The Pemex-led joint venture is now preparing to start the FEED and reassess cost estimates ahead of a potential final investment decision in 2024.

Earlier this year Harbour participated in the Wintershall Dea-operated Kan-1 exploration well in Mexico’s offshore block 30: initial estimates suggest 200-300 Mbbl oil in place, and the partners plan to submit a plan to appraise the discovery to the regulator in the current quarter.

However, they decided to abandoned the block’s second commitment well, Ix-1EXP, before reaching the main target due to operational problems and the well has since been plugged and abandoned (P&A).

The dark red area represents Harbour operated interests, and light red represents Harbour's non-operated interests. The Timpan gas discovery is also noted in the center of the map, with surrounding exploration wells illustrated with white circles.

In the Andaman Sea off Indonesia, Harbour expects to resume drilling in October with a view to building on last year’s Timpan gas discovery on the Andaman II license, which de-risked a potential multi-tcf play.

The first well in the campaign, aimed at demonstrating the commercial viability of a development and testing an extension of the play into South Andaman, will be on the Layaran prospect on the Mubadala-operated South Andaman license.

Further wells will follow on the Halwa and Gayo prospects on Andaman II (Harbour 40 %), after which the rig will return to South Andaman to drill a fourth well, with the location to be determined based on the outcome at Layaran.

Elsewhere off Indonesia, the company is looking to progress the approved field development plan for the Tuna discovery which has been impacted by EU/UK sanctions due to Harbour’s Russian partner. At this point the FEED is unlikely to start until next year, after which FID could follow in 2025.

In the UK southern North Sea, Harbour’s decommissioning team has recently overseen P&A of four gas wells and has prepared two platforms for removal and recycling later in the year. In the UK central sector, a subsea removal and well P&A preparation campaign has started at the MacCulloch, Huntington and Balmoral field areas.

For this year, the company has lowered its capex forecast from $1.1 billion to $1 billion, due to the delayed arrival of rigs at the Andaman and Greater Britannia areas, and operator Apache’s deferral of the subsea and platform drilling campaigns at Beryl in the central UK North Sea.

08.24.2023