Following last year's large gas/condensate discovery at Brulpadda well offshore South Africa, French oil major Total is preparing to drill more wells in the vicinity.
After the Brulpadda, estimated by Rystad Energy to hold 500 mboe to 600mboe, the next well in line at the 11B/12B block is the Luiperd prospect.
Total in July last year struck a deal with Odfjell Drilling to use the Deepsea Stavanger rig – the same it had used for Brulpadda – for the 2020 drilling program in South Africa's Outeniqua Basin, located approximately 175 kilometers off the southern coast of South Africa.
The drilling company Odfjell Drilling at the time said that it expected the drilling program to take 180-280 days, with the rig mobilization to South Africa is expected to start in Q1 2020.
In a statement on Monday, Africa Energy, Total's partner in the Block 11B/11B - containing the discovery and several other prospects - shared the expected spud timeline.
"After the rig is released by AkerBP, it is expected to spend approximately two weeks at the Semco Maritime shipyard in Bergen, Norway for maintenance and modifications before mobilizing to South Africa. According to the updated rig release schedule, the Luiperd-1 well is expected to spud in Q2-2020,” Africa Energy, which owns a 4.9 percent in the block via its stake in Main Street consortium, said.
According to the company, the Total-led joint venture plans to keep the rig on Block 11B/12B for almost a full year in order to drill up to three consecutive exploration wells.
Rystad Energy mid-last year said that apart from Luiperd, three additional prospects Platanna, Woudboom and Blassop – had been de-risked within the area.
For the Luiperd prospect, Rystad in July 2019 provided a pre-drill resource estimate of more than 500 million boe.