Cobalt International Energy Inc. has made a Lower Tertiary Wilcox oil discovery in the southeastern part of the Garden Banks planning area in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) has discovered oil at a fourth 2012 ultradeepwater discovery in the Sergipe-Alagoas basin offshore Brazil in an area more than 900 miles northeast of most of the company’s presalt discoveries in the Santos basin.

Wintershall AG will appraise an oil discovery in 2013 in the Dutch North Sea to which it attributes “a potential of at least 30 million bbl recoverable oil with a more than significant upside.”

A group led by Total E&P Norge has made a discovery in the North Sea offshore Norway judged to contain 25 million to 75 million bbl of recoverable oil, plans to drill a second exploratory well nearby, and is evaluating other nearby prospects.

The Bakken-Three Forks play in the Williston basin contained an estimated 903 billion bbl of original oil in place or 57% more than in 2010 when Continental Resources Inc. estimated that the entire field would eventually yield 20 billion bbl of oil and 4 billion boe of natural gas, the company said.

Senex Energy Ltd., Brisbane, said its Kingston Rule-1 unconventional gas exploratory well in Australia’s southern Cooper basin encountered 53 m of net gas pay in tight sands and 170 m of shale and coal in various formations in the Early Permian section.

Malaysia’s Petronas has made two sizable gas discoveries offshore Sarawak, one of which is the company’s deepest vertical well and its first completed high-pressure high-temperature well.

A group led by Noble Energy Inc. has encountered 150 ft of net oil pay in two high-quality Miocene reservoirs at a deepwater discovery in the Gulf of Mexico.

MarkWest Utica EMG LLC has started up the 60 MMcfd Cadiz refrigeration plant in Harrison County, Ohio, supported by production from two Utica shale wells operated by Gulfport Energy Corp., Oklahoma City.

New Zealand Energy Corp. will watch oil production at its Waitapu-2 discovery well in New Zealand’s Taranaki basin before deciding whether to continue trucking oil or laying a 1.3-km pipeline.

Tullow Oil PLC and Africa Oil Corp. have made a second large oil discovery in the Lokichar basin in northwestern Kenya.

McMoRan Exploration Co., New Orleanas, has provided a status report on production testing at its Davy Jones-1 well in the Gulf of Mexico and its other gulf shelf and Gulf Coast drilling operations.