Eco (Atlantic) lets rig contract for work offshore South Africa
Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas Ltd. has let a drilling contract for the Island Innovator semi-submersible rig with Island Drilling Co. AS for the upcoming Gazania-1 well in Block 2B in Orange basin, offshore South Africa. The rig will be mobilized late August, and the well will spud by October.
The basin straddles offshore waters of Namibia and South Africa. The block covers 3,062 sq km off the west coast of South Africa, 300 km north of Cape Town, with water depths of 50-200 m.
Gazania-1 will target two large prospects 7 km updip from the A-J1 oil made in 1988 drilled by formerly South Africa state-owned Soekor. Thick reservoir sandstones were intersected between 2,985 m and 3,350 m and prospectivity has been identified over the entire A-J graben area using 686-sq km of 3D seismic data.
Orange basin holds recent discoveries by the Shell-operated Graff-1 well and the TotalEnergies-operated Venus-1 well.
Eco Atlantic will become operator of Block 2B (50%) subject to near completion of its 100% acquisition of Azinam Group Ltd. Partners in the block are Africa Energy Corp. (27.5%), a subsidiary of Panoro Energy ASA (12.5%), and Crown Energy AB (indirect 10%).
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).