China
China National Offshore Oil Corp. has signed production sharing contracts with Shell China Exploration & Production Co. Ltd. for the 62/02 and 62/17 blocks in the Yinggehai basin south and west of Hainan Island.
The contracts call for Shell to shoot 3D seismic and drill exploratory wells in the two blocks during the exploration period. Shell will bear all expenditures, and CNOOC has the right to participate in up to 51% working interest in any commercial discovery.
Gabon
China National Offshore Oil Corp. will participate with Shell Gabon in two exploratory blocks offshore Gabon.
CNOOC will acquire a 25% participating interest in the BC9 and BCD10 blocks. CNOOC will reimburse Shell for 25% of certain past exploration costs and carry part of the future exploration costs. Shell will remain operator with 75% interest. The agreement is subject to government approval.
India
Oil India Ltd. and GeoGlobal Resources Inc., Calgary, have an oil discovery on the RJ-20 block in Rajasthan, India.
Meanwhile, the two companies decided not to complete the minimum work program on the RJ-21 block in Rajasthan and the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons called its $897,500 performance bank guarantee.
The Punam-1 well on RJ-20 (RJ-ONN-2004/2) found 17° gravity oil in the Bilara-Jodhpur formations at 1,227-49 m.
Punam-1 is the third well in a 12-well exploratory program on the block. Based on the discovery, the companies are pursuing a further extension of Exploration Phase-I to complete the minimum work program commitments on the block, GeoGlobal said.
Malaysia
Lundin Petroleum AB found the mid-Miocene target sands to be water-bearing in the Tiga Papan-5 well on Blocks SB307 and SB308 offshore Sabah, Malaysia.
The company will plug the well, which targeted an unappraised fault block of the Tiga Papan Unit that was successfully tested in 1982 by the Tiga Papan-1 well.
The Courageous rig, formerly West Courageous, will move to drill the Berangan prospect on Block SB303.
Lundin Petroleum holds 42.5% interest in Blocks SB307 and SB308 through Lundin Malaysia BV. Partners are Petronas Carigali Sdn. Bhd. with 25% and Nio Petroleum Sabah (Ltd.).
Mozambique
Tullow Oil PLC has taken a farmout from Statoil to acquire a 25% working interest in a Statoil-operated license in the Rovuma basin offshore Mozambique. Commercial terms are confidential.
The license, on which exploratory drilling is to start in 2013, consists of blocks 2 and 5 that cover a combined 7,800 sq km in 300-2,400 m of water. The blocks are south of where groups led by Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Eni SPA have made world-class natural gas discoveries in offshore areas 1 and 4.
Statoil retains a 65% working interest in the license, and Mozambique’s state Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos has 10% carried through the exploration phase.
ENH has waived its pre-emption right and approved the agreement, and the government has granted approval subject to the tax authorities’ opinion on applicable transaction taxes.
Norway
Eni Norge AS has spudded the 7220/10-1 exploratory well on PL533 in the Barents Sea offshore Norway.
The drillsite is 54 km southwest and on geological trend with the Skrugard and Havis discoveries. Interests in the license are Eni NOrge 40% and Lundin Norway AS, DNO ASA, and RWE Dea Norge AS 20% each.
Statoil Petroleum AS has spudded the 16/2-12 exploratory well on the Geitungen structure in the North Sea midway between the Johan Sverdrup discovery and the Aldous Major North discovery offshore Norway.
Jurassic sandstones similar to those at Johan Sverdrup are the main objective of the well on the PL265 license. Planned total depth is 2,060 m.
Interests in the well are Statoil 40%, Petoro 30%, DNO ASA 20%, and Lundin Norway AS 10%.
Wintershall Norge AS disclosed that it drilled a dry hole at the 33/6-4 wildcat on Production License 370 in the North Sea 25 km northwest of Statfjord Nord field.
The well’s goal was to find hydrocarbons in reservoir rocks of Paleocene age, but the Lista formation did not contain reservoir rock, Wintershall said. It was the first exploratory well on the license, awarded in 2005. Total depth is 1,814 m below sea level in the Jorsalfare formation of the Upper Cretaceous Shetland Group.
The Borgland Dolphin semisubmersible, which drilled 33/6-4 in 328 m of water, will move to PL 554 to drill the 34/6-2 wildcat operated by Total E&P Norge AS.
Somalia
The partnership drilling the Shabeel North exploratory well in Puntland, Somalila, has elected to deepen the well to 3,400 m from 2,200 m to evaluate the Lower Cretaceous and Jurassic sections.
At 2,200 m, the well has penetrated the entire Jesomma reservoir section, which had several sands with oil and gas shows. Upper Jesomma, indicated by logs to be the most prospect of the sands, had already tested fresh water.
The Jurassic section in the nearby Shabeel well had thin reservoir sands with oil and gas shows but was determined to be not thick enough to warrant testing. These sands are expected to thicken basinward towards Shabeel North. There was also evidence that there may have been faulting in the well that could have cut out a great portion of the basal reservoir section, which is not expected in Shabeel North.
Operator Horn Petroleum Corp. said the deepening should take 15-20 days. The company called the overall results of the two wells “quite encouraging,” having confirmed a working petroleum system, good quality reservoirs, and thick, impermeable seals.
“The two Jesomma structures drilled to date appear, subject to final petrophysical analysis, to have issues with the integrity of the trapping mechanism. We are still hopeful that the lower zones in the Shabeel North well may have favorable trapping geometries against the deeper thick carbonate and anhydrite sections seen in the original Shabeel well,” the company said.
South Africa
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Calgary, said it completed conversion of the license of the company’s 100% working interest block offshore South Africa in the quarter ended June 30.
All regulatory requirements to drill a well are complete, and targeted drilling windows are in late 2013-early 2014 and late 2014-early 2015.
The company sees basin floor fans as thick as 150 m in the Paddavissie fairway on the western part of Block 11B/12B southeast of Mossel Bay. Upslope production exists to the west in Oryx and Oribi oil fields in the Bredasdorp basin.
Ontario
Dundee Energy Ltd., Toronto, said capital spending of $4.5 million in the quarter ended June 30 included $2 million on advancing its 3D land seismic program in southern Ontario.
Dundee, Ontario’s largest oil and gas operator, said the program will be critical to the corporation in identifying its drill candidates in later years.
The company also purchased a land rig for $3.1 million that will augment offshore drilling and completion barge operation in Lake Erie because the equipment and personnel will be interchangeable. The land rig may also be leased to third parties.
Dundee said its production averaged 10.1 MMcfd of gas and 799 b/d of oil and liquids in the quarter, 4% lower than in the same quarter of 2011.
The remaining 2012 work program, budgeted at $7.1 million, will focus on its onshore oil projects and will include a number of workover initiatives to optimize oil production from existing fields.
Dundee continues to assess potential drill opportunities in an ongoing effort to replenish reserves. It plans to shoot 60 line-km of 2D seismic to identify nearshore structures for future drilling to add reserves and production.
Quebec
Petrolia Inc., Rimouski, Que., will drill a series of stratigraphic core holes on Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence offshore Quebec to help characterize the Macasty shale, the geological equivalent of the Utica shale.
Petrolia hopes to ascertain the Macasty’s maturity, organic richness, porosity, permeability, and thickness. The company chose the core locations to avoid tree cutting or opening any new road.
The company also plans to analyze more than 500 other samples taken from the 15 wells previously drilled on the island that reached the Macasty, three wells drilled in Ohio in selected areas where commercial oil flows were recorded from the Utica, and one well in the St. Lawrence Lowlands at which shale oil was recovered from the Macasty.
Oklahoma
The eastern limb of the Mississippi lime dewatering play in the US Midcontinent has attracted numerous small and large operators.
The formation is now being drilled horizontally after having produced through vertical wells for more than 50 years. IHS Inc. noted last week that the land play covers more than 17 million acres in northern Oklahoma, western Kansas, and southwestern Nebraska (OGJ Online, Aug. 1, 2012).
Devon Energy Corp. said it has increased its exposure to the light oil resource play to 545,000 net acres. Other acreage holders on the eastern limb include Range Resources Corp., Highmount Exploration & Production Co., Halcon Resources Corp., PetroQuest Energy Inc., and numerous private entities.
SandRidge Energy, which plans to drill 380 Mississippi lime horizontal well by the end of 2012, expects to be running 33 rigs at the end of the year.
Four of the 29 rigs SandRidge is now running drill disposal wells, given that Mississippi Lime wells produce 90% water along with commercial volumes of oil.
SandRidge told investors it plans to drill 10 producing wells for every disposal well when it reaches development mode compared with five producing wells per disposal well at present
Red Fork Energy Ltd., Perth, which has built its nonoperated position to 75,000 net acres east of the Nemaha ridge in five Oklahoma counties, agreed to sell its crude to a subsidiary of Phillips 66. The oil will be pipelined or trucked to the 187,000 b/d Ponca City, Okla., refinery.
Red Fork Energy just completed the McMurtry 1-21H well in Noble County, Okla., in which it has 62.2% working interest, at a peak rate of 494 b/d of 38° gravity oil and 1.3 MMcfd of high-BTU gas. The well’s 23-day average was 470 boe/d.
All operators have drilled more than 640 horizontal wells in the play so far, and 65 rigs were drilling in the play late in this year’s second quarter, Red Fork Energy said.
