Oil and gas company Kosmos Energy has made an oil discovery at the Tiberius exploration well in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico near the Occidental-operated Lucius SPAR production facility.
According to Kosmos, the Tiberius exploration well tested a four-way structural trap in the outboard Wilcox trend, located in Keathley Canyon Block 964. The well encountered approximately 250 feet (~75 meters) of net oil pay in the primary Wilcox target.
Wireline logging has been completed, and casing is currently being run to the target depth to enable the well to be used as a future oil producer. The Tiberius well is located in approximately 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) of water and was drilled to a total vertical depth of approximately 25,800 feet (7,800 meters).
Kosmos said the next step was undertaking rock and fluid analysis to confirm the production potential of the reservoir and will work with partners on subsea development options.
The discovery is located approximately 6 miles southeast of the Occidental-operated Lucius SPAR production facility, enabling a short tie-back in the event of a development.
Kosmos is operator of the well and has a 33.34% working interest alongside Occidental and Equinor ASA (both 33.33%).
Andrew G. Inglis, Kosmos Energy’s chairman and chief executive officer said: “Exploration success at Tiberius validates our proven basin infrastructure-led exploration strategy, which is focused on low cost, short cycle development opportunities. The Gulf of Mexico is an advantaged basin with top quartile carbon emissions, and discoveries like Tiberius can bring lower carbon U.S. supply to meet near-term growing oil demand.”
Oil well intelligence firm Welligence Energy Analytics said that the discovery was good news following the delay of Lease Sale 261 and the announcement of a minimal leasing program in the new Proposed 5-Year Program, but there could be some issues developing it via the Lucius platform.
"Tiberius is the latest Lower Tertiary discovery after Shell's Blacktip North in November 2021. The obvious development solution is a tieback to Oxy's Lucius spar, just ~6 miles (10 km) to the north. However, timing could be the issue as the facility hosts Lucius, Hadrian North, and Buckskin - we expect its 80,000 bbl/d processing capacity to be fully utilized in the medium term," Welligence said.