Tullow Makes French Guiana Oil Discovery, New Basin Unlocked
Tullow Oil (LON:TLW) this week announced a major success with its Zaedyus exploration well in French Guiana in South America. The Zaedyus exploration well was drilled in the Guyane Maritime license, and made an oil discovery, encountering 72 metres of net oil pay in two turbidite fans. The well was drilled in water depths of 2,048 metres and has been drilled to a depth of 5,711 metres. Drilling operations will now continue and the well will be deepened to over 6,000 metres to calibrate the deeper geology. The well will then likely be sidetracked to enable cores to be obtained over the reservoir sections. The oil discovery is of huge significance for Tullow and the region as a whole. The objective of the Zaedyus exploration well was to determine if there was any substance to the theory that the Ghanaian Jubilee Play was mirrored on the other side of the Atlantic. The Jubilee field has been a huge success for Tullow, having been discovered in 2007, achieving first oil around the start of 2011, and now production is expected to reach 120,000 bopd by year end. This new discovery proves the theory, opening up a new basin which holds several other prospects which have already been mapped. The Zaedyus results also significantly reduce exploration risk for Tullow’s prospects in the neighbouring countries of French Guiana, namely Suriname and Guyana, and investment in these areas is now likely to pick up.
Success for Total in the Caspian Sea
Total, along with its partners SOCAR and GDF SUEZ, announced that it has made a major gas discovery on the Absheron Block, in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. The Absheron X-2 well, located 25km north-east of the Shah Deniz gas and condensate field, encountered 500 feet of cumulated net gas pays within high quality sands. Absheron X-2, already at 6,650 metres, is to be extended further to investigate other promising structures. This will be followed by well testing, which Total expects to confirm the reservoir’s potential to contain several trillion cubic feet of gas and associated condensates.
Production Returns to Liberated Libya
In Libya, with Gaddafi's regime now all but defeated, operators who were forced to flee following the uprising in February, have continued their tentative re-entry into the…
