OMV New Zealand will plug and abandon its Whio-1 well in the Southern Taranaki basin offshore New Zealand as a dry hole, announced partner Horizon Oil on 26 August 2014.
The semisubmersible drilling rig Kan Tan IV drilled the Whio-1 well to 2824m total depth in the Paleocene Farewell formation, Horizon confirmed. OMV said that the well encountered sandstones in all objectives (Whio A Sandstone, M2A Sandstone, Moki formation, Mangahewa formation, Kaimiro formation, and Farewell formation) as expected, however, it could not confirm the presence of commercial hydrocarbons.
Whoi was thought to contain mean unrisked prospective resources of 18MMbo gross.
OMV operates permit PEP 51313, which contains the Whoi prospect, with 30%. Its partners include Horizon Oil (New Zealand) Ltd. (21%), Todd Exploration Ltd. (35%), and Cue Taranaki Pty Ltd. (14%).
As part of a 2012 farm-in deal, OMV will carry the cost of drilling and completing the Whio-1 well. According to Todd Exploration, the joint venture partners will also decide whether to drill the Te Whatu structure in the permit area this year and plans to evaluate the opportunity on new 3D seismic data.
The Whoi prospect is located 7km from the Maari installation in the PMP 38160 production permit, also operated by OMV.
Maari, discovered in 1983, has been in production since 2009 via the Raroa FPSO. OMV announced in March that the area will undergo a five-well drilling campaign into 2015 using the Ensco 107 jackup rig. The drilling campaign is part of a US$330 million growth project to improve recovery efforts from the Maari and Manaia reservoirs.
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