Malaysia
Murphy Oil Corp., El Dorado, Ark., reported the first deepwater oil discovery off Malaysia and planned to move the rig immediately to drill an appraisal well.
The well on the Kikeh prospect in almost 4,400 ft of water on southern Block K off Sabah encountered several hundred feet of high quality oil reservoirs. Murphy called the discovery "significant" and said the structure covers a large area.
Murphy is operator and holds 80% interest in 6 million acres on blocks K and H. Malaysia's Petronas holds the other 20% interest. Murphy's holding in Block H is a farmout from Esso Exploration & Production Sabah Ltd., an ExxonMobil Corp. unit.
Murphy added, "We believe that the offshore deepwater margin of Sabah has tremendous prospectivity."
Sierra Leone
The government launched a bid round of 7 blocks of 4,000 sq km each with a deadline of Mar. 30, 2003.
TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Co., Houston, acquired 5,700 km of seismic data in support of the bid round. It acquired the data with long offsets and processed them with prestack time migration. Logs for two wells and a regional interpretation report are available.
The country held a general election in May and implemented a new model petroleum agreement. The Baobab discovery off Ivory Coast and Chinguetti find off Mauritania have heightened interest in the general area.
Kentucky
The Kentucky Geological Survey, Lexington, launched the nation's first free statewide, online oil and gas well records system.
For decades, oil and gas producers have been using the vast paper archive of oil and gas well records housed at KGS. The online system (www.uky.edu/KGS/pubs/lop.htm) provides free access at all times to 1.3 million digital images of well records for anyone with an internet link and desktop computer.
The online system includes information on more than 150,000 oil and gas wells drilled in Kentucky. It also includes images of geophysical logs.