Shell made a large exploration discovery at the Leopard-1 well, offshore Gabon, West Africa.
The exploration well encountered a substantial gas column with around 200m net gas pay in a pre-salt reservoir.
Leopard-1 is located in license BCD10 approximately 145km off the Gabonese coast, west of Gamba. It was drilled in water 2110m deep to a total vertical depth of 5063m.
Shell and partners are planning to undertake an appraisal program to further determine the resource volumes.
"Shell has been exploring in Gabon for over 50 years. This latest deepwater discovery is a testament to the innovation of our explorers in pursuing new plays, and application of our global sub-surface expertise," says Andy Brown, Shell upstream international director. "We are proud to be sharing this success with CNOOC Ltd., our partner in the license."
Shell operates license BCD10 with a 75% interest with partner CNOOC (25%).
Other activity off Gabon this month include Vaalco Energy, who began a six-well development drilling campaign on the Etame Marin block offshore Gabon, following the installation of the Etame platform and the Southeast Etame/North Tchibala platform. The first well, Etame 8-H, already spudded using the Transocean Constellation II jackup rig. Constellation II will be used to drill two additional development wells (Etame 9-H and 10-H), each targeting the Gamba sand formation in the Etame field. First oil from the Etame 8-H well is expected in December 2014.
In addition, the country’s authorities recently approved Harvest Natural Resources’ plans to develop the Ruche fields in the Duffafu license, offshore Gabon using a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel. The project will see the Ruche A (formally Ruche), Ruche B (Tortue), Ruche C (Moubenga) and Ruche D (Walt Whitman) discoveries all developed as subsea wells tied back to an FPSO.
Image from Shell.
Read more:
West Africa: The continued story of the “Haves” and the “Have-nots”
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