Karoon Gas Australia Ltd., Melbourne, has successfully bid for a 171-sq-km offshore block in the Santos basin just south of Rio de Janeiro. The award comes as part of Brazil’s 14th bid round (OGJ Online, Sept. 28, 2017).
The block, designated S-M-1537, lies in about 400 m of water and is in an existing oil and gas producing region. Several producing oil and gas fields are nearby including Bauna and Piracaba to the north. The Caravela and Coral oil discoveries are to the west.
Karoon says that the block contains one main prospect coving much of the area which has a target reservoir of Oligocene turbidite sands with high permeability and porosity as seen in Baruna and Piracaba fields.
Existing seismic shows an amplitude vs. offset anomaly that the company believes is supportive of the presence of trapped oil.
Karoon used its experience from the Kangaroo and Echidna discoveries about 100 km north and knowledge of the nearby fields to identify S-M-1537 as the best high-value potential in the southern part of the Santos basin.
The company will complete acquisition of the block in December after execution of a concession agreement in Brazil. This will entail a payment of $8 million (Aus.) in a nonrefundable bid bonus and it will provide a refundable work program guarantee bond to the Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum of $2.5 million.
The initial work program will comprise seismic acquisition and geological studies.