Talos Energy has completed its Tornado II exploration well and side track in the Phoenix field of the Green Canyon area of the Gulf of Mexico in about 2700ft water depth.
The Tornado II drilling program, using the Ensco 8503 drilling rig, looked to test a fault block adjacent to the company’s 2016 Tornado discovery, followed by a sidetrack well to delineate the 2016-discovered reservoir.
The fault block test logged about 222ft measured depth (176ft total vertical depth) of net oil pay across the B-5 and B-6 Sands. This resource will now be considered in the development of the 2018 drilling campaign.
The Tornado II sidetrack delineation well logged about 297ft total measured depth (283ft total vertical depth) of net oil pay across the B-5 and B-6 Sands. The well will now be tied into the existing Phoenix field subsea infrastructure, which flows to the Helix Producer I dynamically positioned floating production facility. Initial production from the GC 281 #2ST well is expected to start in December of 2017.
As of September 2017, the cumulative gross production from the initial Tornado discovery was 5.7 MMboe at 16,800 boe/d gross.
Tim Duncan, president and CEO of Talos sad: "The Tornado II drilling program gives us another high-impact well with near-term production potential and future drilling inventory with compelling economics. I am proud of the achievements made by our technical and operational teams, who worked collaboratively in a safe and efficient manner to deliver this project ahead of schedule and under budget.”
The Tornado I and Tornado II drilling programs executed during 2016 and 2017 have provided four penetrations in the Tornado area to fully delineate and exploit the original discovery. The four penetrations have logged a total of approximately 1370ft total measured depth (1170ft total vertical depth) of net oil pay.
To execute the Tornado II drilling program, Talos contracted the Ensco 8503, a dynamically positioned floating drilling rig that drilled the company’s Zama-1 discovery in Mexico, with initial estimated gross original oil in place ranging from 1.4-2.0 billion barrels.
Talos has 65% working interest in the Tornado wells and is the operator, with Deep Gulf Energy III owning the remaining 35% working interest.