Dana Petroleum and its partners failed to make an oil discovery at the Manatee-1 exploration well, offshore Cameroon, according to partner SDX Energy.
The well, located in the shallow waters in the prolific Niger Delta basin, was spud on 2 March using the Paragon M825 jackup rig, and reached a total depth of 1447m on 27 March.
The well intersected 26m of gas bearing section of varying quality throughout the wellbore. Wellbore conditions did not permit the acquisition of a full suite of logging tools in the deeper sections of the hole which makes the analyses of these lower intervals inconclusive at this time. Additional technical work will be completed with the samples and material collected from the well to improve the understanding of their quality in a post well analyses. The operation was conducted safely and within the anticipated pre-well budget estimate.
“Whilst we are disappointed not to have made an oil discovery, we recognized the risks associated with exploration wells of this kind,” Paul Welch, SDX CEO said.
The secondary objective was to see whether a commercially viable gas discovery could be made. At this stage it is too early to quantify the Manateee-1 gas potential and the JV’s technical team will be working closely with partners to evaluate the well results to determine if the gas volumes on the block have commercial potential.
Positively, the Block contains a further 12 prospects and leads which have been significantly de-risked by the Manatee-1 well results. The JV will use the information obtained from this well to improve its understanding of the Bakassi West Block to discuss the next steps.
“We are in a fortunate position to have a stable core business in Egypt which continues to generate positive cash flow and also provide us with additional exciting exploration opportunities such as in the South Disouq area where we are currently acquiring 3D seismic and plan to drill an exploration well towards the end of this year. We continue to focus on increasing production in our high margin fields of North West Gemsa and Meseda whilst preparing for our next potentially transformational exploration well in South Disouq at the end of year. I look forward to reporting on our progress on these initiatives’ in the near future,” said Welch.
Map from SDX.
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