Stone Energy Corp. spud a well at the Rampart Deep prospect in the Gulf of Mexico last week (3 June) with a recently warm stacked Transocean drillship.
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Deepwater Asgard. Image from Transocean. |
The prospect, which targets the Miocene interval, is located 9mi from Stone’s Pompano platform at Mississippi Canyon Block 166 in 2666ft (812m) of water. Stone estimates it will take two months to drill the well. If successful, the well will be tied back to Pompano.
Stone is drilling the well with Transocean drillship Deepwater Asgard. In its first quarter conference call in early May, Transocean reported that the company was close to signing a contract for the rig to return to work after being warm stacked. Earlier this year, Chevron cut short its contract early for the Deepwater Asgard after taking on Transocean newbuild Deepwater Conquerer on contract.
Deep Gulf Energy III, LLC, which holds 30% interest in the prospect, will drill and operate the Rampart Deep well. After a selldown of a portion of its position, Stone holds a 40% working interest in the well and received leasehold and other reimbursable costs. Additional working interest owners include entities managed by Ridgewood Energy Corp. (including Riverstone Holdings, LLC and its portfolio company ILX Holdings III, LLC) with 30%.
"The Rampart Deep well is an important step in Stone's forward plans. A successful test of the Rampart Deep Prospect could lead to a multi-well development program, with a tie back to our Pompano platform further leveraging this facility,” says interim Chief Executive Officer and President James M. Trimble in a 9 June press statement.
Recently, Stone implemented additional workforce reductions to better align its employee base with current business needs. The company expects this action to result in an approximate 25% decrease in its salaries, general and administrative cash costs for the second half of 2017, translating into an expected quarterly cash SG&A outlay, before capitalization, of approximately US$11 million to $12 million per quarter, excluding non-recurring and non-cash items. Stone projects an overall SG&A reduction of approximately 50% from 2016.
“Partnering with Deep Gulf Energy and Ridgewood on this well reflects our renewed focus on efficient use of capital, and the reductions in SG&A reflect our continued commitment to manage our costs to better position Stone to be competitive in the current commodity price environment,” Trimble added.
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