BG Group has made the first oil discovery off East Africa, according to a partner on the Sunbird-1 exploration well.
Pancontinental Oil and Gas said a 14m gross oil column was found beneath a 2936m gross gas column in a reefal limestone reservoir in the Sunbird Miocene Pinnacle Reef in area L10A, offshore Kenya.
The top of the Sunbird Miocene Pinnacle Reef was reached at 1583.7m subsea, in 723m water depth.
Pancontinental’s CEO Barry Rushworth said the implications of the Sunbird-1 well results for regional oil exploration were “truly outstanding.”
“The Sunbird-1 oil is the historic first-ever oil discovery offshore Kenya,” Rushworth said. “Furthermore, it is the only offshore oil column ever reported seaward of the eastern coastal margin of the African continent, from South Africa to the north-west tip of Somalia.
“We believe that this is a play-opening discovery in Kenya’s Lamu Basin. We encountered a thick and effective seal over the top of the reef, which was an initial risk for us, and the regional follow-on implications of this are truly significant. Porosity, permeability and seal for the reservoir were all better than Pancontinental expected.”
The Sunbird Reef is an ancient Miocene pinnacle reef buried beneath approximately 900m of younger sediment, says Pancontinental.
Analysis of the Sunbird results were complicated by the loss of drilling mud, which meant the reservoir zone was heavily flushed during well control operations, making determination of the oil and gas zones difficult.
Pancontinental said the L10A joint venture is now considering exploration activities following the Sunbird-1 oil discovery. Within L10A there are a variety of play types, including Tertiary and Cretaceous channels, large anticlinal complexes and Cretaceous and Tertiary fault-bounded prospects.
Other offshore Kenyan activity includes an exploration well due to be drilled by Anadarko later in 2014.
The Kenya L10A consortium consists of: BG Group (operator) 50.00%, PTTEP 31.25%, and Pancontinental 18.75%.
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