Offshore staff
LONDON – Afren has completed the initial phases of the shallow-water Ebok field development off Nigeria, following commissioning and ramp-up of all 14 production wells.
The jackup TransoceanHigh Island Vll remains at the field’s west fault block area. Afren and partner Oriental Energy Resources plan to drill up to four further horizontal production wells from this location, targeting oil-bearing reservoir zones not drilled during the initial phases of field development work.
They are also lining up exploration wells on a 35-MMbbl prospect on the untested Ebok north fault block during the first half of 2012, and on the 60-MMbbl Ufon prospect in the OML 115 lease.
In November, Afren completed a four-month plus ocean bottom cable 3D seismic survey over the whole Ebok/Okwok/OML 115 area which involved acquiring 348 sq km (134 sq mi) of data. Processing should be complete by April.
The results should assist development planning for the 51.8-MMbbl Okwok field ahead of formal submission of a field development plan to the Nigerian authorities.
At this stage, the most likely scenario is installation of a dedicated production processing platform tied back to the existing 1.2-MMbblEbok FPSO 13 km (8 mi) to the west.
Afren is also looking to farm-out part of its interest in OPL 310 which extends from the shallow water continental shelf to deepwater offshore southwest Nigeria, and covers an under- explored basin with a proven working hydrocarbon system.
Several promising structures have been identified in the same Senonian, Turonian, and Albian sandstone intervals that have yielded major discoveries along the Ghanaian and Cote d’Ivoire sections of the West African Transform Margin.
In Nigeria - São Tomé & Príncipe JDZ block 1, where Afren has a 4.41% interest, new operator Total has proposed drilling this year an appraisal well on the Obo discovery and one exploration well. The first well should spud in this quarter.
Offshore Ghana, the semisubMarianas is due to arrive shortly to spud the Nunya-1x (ex-Cuda-2) exploration well for Eni. Afren estimates the structure’s potential resources at 325 MMbbl.
In the shallow-water part of the Tanga block off Tanzania, Afrenplansto drill the Orpheus prospect this year and is working to secure a suitable jackup. A recently completed 900-km (559-mi) 2D seismic survey over the deepwater area is undergoing processing and final results are expected at the end of March.
To the north in Kenya block L17/18, new prospects have been defined following a400-km (248-mi) 2D seismic acquisition program in 2010. Afren has also started acquiring more 2D data in the deepwater region of the block and plans to drill one exploration well targeting the coastal play later this year, pending rig availability.
Finally, drilling of the Paipai exploratory well on Kenya block 10A is now expected to start in June.
01/24/2012
