Offshore staff
LONDON– Ophir Energy has contracted the drillship Stena DrillMAX to drill the Starfish prospect in the Accra block offshore Ghana.
Starfish-1, due to spud in June, will be drilled in a water depth of 1,360 m (4,462 ft). The well is designed to test a stratigraphic onlap trap east of Kosmos and Tullow’s majorJubilee-area discoveries.
Ophir estimates Starfish’s mean prospective resources at 292 MMboe with a 20% chance of exploration success.
Offshore Tanzania, the company continues its drilling program with partner and operator BG Group.
After completing a testing program on the deepwaterJodari and Mzia gas discoveries, the drillship Deep Sea Metro 1 will next drill the Ngisi prospect in block 4, which could hold in-place resources of 1.3 tcf (37 bcm).
Ngisi-1 will be drilled with two deviated well paths, both testing separate compartments of the Ngisi prospect and the deeper Chewa discovery. Ophir hopes a success will increase mean recoverable resources of the Chewa-Pweza-Ngisi hub to 4.1 tcf (116 bcm), providing sufficient reserves for a gas development on block 4.
The partners drilled theirfirst deviated well off Tanzania last December on Jodari. These type of wells should reduce field development costs, Ophir said.
Ngisi-1will be the final well drilled byDeepsea Metro 1 before its contract expires in early June.
The partners continue to interpret the block 1 outboard Kusini 3D survey. Recently received offset stack data are providing additional information that could alter future drilling priorities. They plan to secure a rig to re-start their exploration program in 3Q 2013.
4/11/2013
