Cameroon
Sinopec Group's Addax Petroleum Cameroon Ltd. unit has let a contract to Atwood Oceanics Inc. for the Atwood Aurora jack up to drill offshore Cameroon.
Atwood said the contract is for 1 year beginning February 2014 at a $193,000 day rate inclusive of the 15% Cameroon withholding tax or $164,000 exclusive of the 15% Cameroon withholding tax, depending on the well location.
Addax in October 2012 said it would appraise the Padouk-1X exploratory well in 42 m of water on the Iroko block in the Rio Del Rey basin near the marine border with Nigeria.
The discovery well went to a TD of 2,616 m and logged 38.6 m TVD of net oil and 65.1 m TVD of net gas sands in which Addax estimated a provisional contingent resource of 20 million bbl of oil and 200 bcf of gas excluding upside potential to be assessed during appraisal.
Iraq
WesternZagros Resources Ltd., Calgary, has completed satellite topography mapping of the 1,780 sq km Garmian block in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
PhotoSat Information Ltd., Vancouver, BC, used stereo photos from the Pleiades 1A and 1B satellites to map an elevation point every meter and draft contours with 1-m elevation intervals. WesternZagros will use the maps and photos for 3D seismic surveys, access roads and wellsites, field development, and pipeline engineering studies.
WesternZagros is operator with 40% interest in the Garmian contract area. Gazprom Neft Middle East BV and KRG hold respective working interests of 40% and 20%.
Tunisia/Libya
Joint Oil, the Tunisia-Libya offshore authority, has approved a farmout by Sonde Resources Corp., Calgary, of the Joint Oil block in the Mediterranean off the two countries to Viking Exploration & Production Tunisia Ltd.
Sonde Resources received approval from Joint Oil's board to farm out to Viking 66.67% of its potential Zarat Field Exploitation Area and 50% of the remainder of its interest in the Joint Oil block. Certain terms of the farmout are required to be amended. Sonde and Viking are completing the necessary documentation to effect the amendments, and this documentation is anticipated to be executed before a June 7 deadline.
California
Aera Energy LLC has drilled the Aera-Mortgage 881D-15 well in Kings County, Calif., in the San Joaquin basin to a final vertical depth of 15,362 ft and run electric logs.
Aera Energy has informed the farmor, Zodiac Exploration Inc., Calgary, which supports the decision, that the well be temporarily suspended and remain on tight-hole status.
Aera Energy will decide on drilling the horizontal well section as required by the October 2012 farmout agreement. That agreement called for Aera Energy to fund and drill two vertical wells and two horizontal wells to evaluate either the Monterey or Kreyenhagen shale formation to earn a 50% interest in 19,600 acres of Zodiac-held lands in Kings County.
Ohio
Magnum Hunter Resources Corp., Houston, has taken delivery of a robotic drilling rig, the fifth rig in its fleet, that it expects to spud a Utica shale well in southeastern Ohio on June 1.
Magnum Hunter's Alpha Hunter Drilling LLC unit has taken possession of the Schramm T500XD robotic rig that it will use exclusively for company-owned wells for the next 3 years.
Unlike traditional rigs that are on rails and only allow movement from left to right or front to back, the T500XD has a walking subbase that lifts the rig 6 in. off the ground, allowing the rig to turn and rotate. The rig can walk at 30 ft/hr and rotate 360° and is capable of drilling to 19,000 ft.
The rig has an automated pipe handling system that racks drill pipe horizontally, dramatically improving operator safety. Other features include best in class 35,000 ft-lb. of tophead torque, third-party directional steering interface, and 80,000 lb. of hydraulic pulldown capacity.
Magnum Hunter said it has recently constructed one pad site in Ohio that can handle as many as 16 new drilling locations, eight in the Marcellus and eight in the Utica.
Alaska
Buccaneer Energy Ltd., Sydney, spudded the Cosmo-1 well in 80 ft of water in Cook Inlet 30 miles northwest of Homer, Alas.
The vertical well's TD is 8,000 ft using the Endeavour jack up. The first Tyonek gas zone is expected at 2,150 ft followed by multiple gas zones to 6,000 ft. Casing will be set at 6,000 ft before drilling through the proven oil-bearing Starichkof and Hemlock formations below which is the prospective West Foreland formation.
The current plan is to take oil cores to augment the reservoir data to further optimize the future oil development plan, and at this stage it is not planned to flow-test the oil formations. After drilling and logging, the well will be plugged back to the bottom of Tyonek.
Operator Buccaneer holds 25% working interest; BlueCrest Energy II LP, Fort Worth, holds 75%.
