Kosmos Energy is set to spud the Hippocampe well offshore Mauritania at the end of August, however, the Dallas-based company sees Suriname as its top opportunity.
 |
|
Map of Mauritania, from Kosmos. |
The company’s exploration program off Mauritania and Senegal includes plans to drill three additional high impact wells targeting super giant prospects starting later this month, Andrew Inglis, Kosmos chairman and CEO said in the company’s Q2 2017 earnings call.
The program will begin with Hippocampe in Block 8, which is comprised of a series of stack basin floor fans in a combination of structural stratigraphic trap providing potential for more liquids rich gas and/or oil. The well is targeting Cenomanian and Albian age reservoirs charged by the Valanginian, Neocomian and potentially Albian sources. Both reservoir targets displayed very strong seismic attribute support for hydrocarbons, including calibrated AVO, which conforms to structure.
“Hippocampe is a good example of our prospect to continuing to grow. We previously described Hippocampe as a prospect with a p-mean resource of over 2 billion boe or 12 Tcf of gas equivalent,” Inglis, Kosmos said. “We now believe the potential in and adjacent to into Hippocampe is significantly larger having received an integrated new seismic data into our analysis.
Following Hippocampe, Kosmos anticipates to spud the Lamantin well in Q4.
Kosmos says that Lamantin is a basin for fan comprised of campaign age reservoirs, which stratisgraphically younger than the company’s other prospects in charge from a Cenomanian-Turonian, Albian oil prone, oil mature source systems.
“We have now received fast-track 3D process gathers, which display good distinctive AVO in support of the prospect. We continue to view Lamantin as our best chance of finding black oil in the basin, given its location in the heart of the Cenomanian-Turonian, Albian source systems and estimate the p-mean resource size is 2 to 3 billion boe, Inglis said.
After Lamantin, Kosmos is planning to move to Requin Tigre in Senegal at the end of 2017.
“Requin Tigre is the 60 Tcf test of a large basin and for fan, which we believe is lighting to more gas prone given its proximity to Tortue and other results in Senegal,” Inglis said.
The final investment decision for Tortue is expected to be reached next year, with first gas targeted in 2021. The front-end engineering and design for the project is anticipated for later this year.
The company noted that Suriname is its top opportunity, with plans to drill two wells in mid- to late-2018.
“3D seismic acquisition is complete and we've received interim process volumes in-house confirming the multi-billion barrel prospectivity of the basin,” Inglis said. “In Block 42, our work in combination with our partners, Hess and Chevron, has validated our previously identified Aurora trend on the eastern portion of the block and has identified additional prospectivity on the Apetina trend located on the western portion of our block. In Block 45, our 700 MMbbl prospect stand out drilling opportunity and recent additional seismic has enhanced this definition.”
Offshore Sao Tome, Kosmos is nearly 85% complete with its 3D seismic acquisition, which is the largest undertaken in the company's history.
“Our position here is compelling because of its location outboard of the proven Rio Muni basin offshore Equatorial Guinea and between the oil seeps on the islands of Sao Tome and Principe themselves. We're pursuing a similar basin for a fan concept that we have successfully unlocked in Mauritania and Senegal, pending a review of the 3D seismic, we plan to drill here in 2019,” Inglis said.
Subscribe
