EXPLORATION PROGRAM SLATED ON ACREAGE OFF BAHAMAS

A California independent producer has acquired exploration rights to 1.535 million acres in the untested southern Blake Plateau basin off Bahamas. Ferguson Energy Co., Bakersfield, Calif., acquired 100% interest in the tract through a Cayman Islands subsidiary, Ferguson/GDM Offshore Resources Ltd. It is seeking partners. Within 3 years, Ferguson is to spend $2 million on exploration, which might involve seismic surveys or a stratigraphic test. Term of the 3 year license can be extended to 12

Aug. 5, 1991

2 min read

A California independent producer has acquired exploration rights to 1.535 million acres in the untested southern Blake Plateau basin off Bahamas.

Ferguson Energy Co., Bakersfield, Calif., acquired 100% interest in the tract through a Cayman Islands subsidiary, Ferguson/GDM Offshore Resources Ltd. It is seeking partners.

Within 3 years, Ferguson is to spend $2 million on exploration, which might involve seismic surveys or a stratigraphic test. Term of the 3 year license can be extended to 12 years once Ferguson satisfies the initial work commitment.

A commercial discovery would convert the exploration license to a lease.

Using 1,200 km of seismic survey shot in 1976, Ferguson's technical advisers, Pure Resources Inc. of Bakersfield and Spectra Resources of Houston, have mapped an elongate dome prospect about 50 miles long and 20 miles wide. They estimate vertical closure of at least 1,000 ft.

Water depth in the basin averages 3,000 ft.

The only known drilling in the area was a 1985 strat test that was drilled downdip of the postulated structure's crest by the Ocean Drilling Program of the National Science Foundation and Joint Oceanographic Institution (Joides).

The test, Joides DSDP 627, had to be abandoned at a subsea depth of 536 m because it encountered hydrocarbons, according to Pure and Spectra.

They say their geological and geophysical studies indicate a sedimentary column at least 25,000 ft thick across the 60,000 sq mile basin, part of the North Atlantic rift system.