By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Mar. 28 – Anadarko Petroleum Corp. has finalized plans for its previously announced 2011 drilling campaign in the Liberian basin off West Africa.
The program consists of two wells off eastern Sierra Leone and one off western Liberia.
Anadarko will mobilize the Discoverer Spirit drillship from the Gulf of Mexico to West Africa after it finishes completion on the third Caesar/Tonga well. Subject to the finalization of a contract amendment with the rig owner, the Discoverer Spirit is expected to begin drilling in West Africa during the third quarter of 2011.
The company will drill the first Mercury appraisal well 7 miles west of the Mercury discovery well off Sierra Leone in Block SL-07B-10. It will drill the Jupiter exploratory prospect on the same block later in the year. Anadarko operates Block SL-07B-10 with a 65% working interest.
Anadarko will drill the Montserrado exploratory well on Block 15 off Liberia. Anadarko operates the block with a 57.5% working interest. Farther east, on Block 10, Anadarko has completed acquisition of a 2,400 sq km 3D seismic survey that gives it 3D coverage of nearly all of its Liberian basin acreage. Processing is expected to take 6-9 months.
Anadarko said it has identified more than 30 Jubilee-like prospects on its acreage off West Africa. It plans to keep the Ensco 8500 rig in the Gulf of Mexico for an extended well test at Lucius and, once it receives drilling permits, will use that rig and contract a deepwater rig of opportunity to resume its development and exploration programs in the gulf.
159458497 Aleksei Zakirov | Dreamstime.
Photo from Esso SAF.
